Paradise Lost
by The Altered Destinies
Summary: Ryouga's, lost as usual, when a really good-looking woman tells him she's been looking for him. She works for his father, and they want him to stop something called an... Angel?
1. Chapter 1

The streets were empty... odd for the middle of the day. No cars, no people, nothing but the occasional bird. He could hear sirens, but distantly. It was if the entire town had become empty of people, but nothing else had changed.

-Where am I now?

The young man had come a long way, but he wasn t tired yet. Compared to slogging through jungles or climbing mountains, taking a walk through town was nothing to even think about. The September day was hot, and small beads of perspiration trickled from his hair into his headband. He ignored it, as usual, and adjusted the straps of his pack. Looking at the paper in his hand, he read again:

I ll pick you up at your house, 2 PM.  
Your father wants to talk with you.

Katsuragi Misato

It was a miracle he had received the letter at all; he hadn t been home in nine or ten months. If the postmaster hadn t forwarded it to a friend s place, it would have rotted in the mailbox. As it was he received it late; he only had had six days to get home. If he knew where he was. If he knew where home was.

He looked around for somebody, intending to ask directions, before remembering that nobody was around. Odd, that. Failing that, he hunted down a phone booth, and started flipping pages. With any luck, this Katsuragi person would have returned home already and he could have her come pick him up. He fed scrounged change into the machine and dialed.

On the fifteenth ring, he hung the telephone up. Grabbing the change from the return slot, he looked around desperately. He was good at being lost, perhaps the best there was, and knew that you could always get somewhere by finding a straight line and following it. He also knew, from a rather unfortunate incident last Christmas, that you weren t supposed to follow that line in the middle of a city. And there still wasn t anybody around. Where was everybody?

A low rumble startled birds off the ground. The young man looked up, expecting the much-feared thunderstorm Wouldn t that be perfect but only saw a girl, young teens, with short blue hair. She stood about a block away and just looked at him.

The sound of a car engine caused the young man to tilt his head away, and when he looked back, he saw nothing but an empty street and birds. Puzzled, he wandered over to where she had stood and started looking around to see where she might have gone. She hadn t ran off... nobody the young man knew was quite that fast, and he knew some very fast people indeed.

Another low rumble echoed off of the buildings. It was interrupted by the sound of squealing brakes as a small blue sports car skidded to a halt right next to the young man. The driver flung the door open and shouted, "Get inside! Where have you been? I ve been looking for you for a week!"

Never one to turn down a free ride, the young man threw his pack in the back seat and climbed inside. The driver didn t even wait for him to close the door before peeling out. He fastened his seat belt, though he really didn t need it, it wouldn t do him any good anyway, and looked over at the driver.

"Hello. Nice to meet you." It was always best to be polite to women when you first met, especially when they were driving you somewhere instead of pounding your face in. She looked to be in her early thirties, quite good looking, with hair so dark it shone the blue of the car. He noticed that she was wearing a silver cross pendant before she answered.

"You d never know it from the trouble I had tracking you down. What s in the pack? I didn t ask you to move or anything."

The young man decided that she must have him confused with somebody else. Everything he owned was in the pack... two changes of clothes, a ribbon, some food, his umbrella, a travel tent. A little paper and a pencil. A couple of rock fragments he had found interesting. A truffle... He coughed and said, "I m trying to get to Nerima. Which way are you headed?"

Another booming sound shook the car, closer this time. The woman s knuckles tightened on the steering wheel as she answered, "This isn t the time to play games. You were supposed to be at home, after all. Did you decide to go sight-seeing?"

The young man immediately wished he hadn t taken up this ride. Sometimes people could confuse him, especially when they didn t explain what they were talking about. He decided to take the direct approach, not unusual for him, and asked, "Do I know you?"

She turned the wheel sharply, sending a long wrapped tube up against his pack in the back seat. "Of course I know you, you re Ryoga Hibiki, right?"

Ryoga nodded and said, "Yes." Well, now he was totally confused. Another thing I m an expert at, he thought. "Who are you?"

The woman lost her exasperated look and smiled. "I m Misato Katsuragi. Welcome to NERV, Hibiki-kun."

Paradise Lost Fan fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax, respectively.

The booming sound was getting closer, and more frequent. Ryoga idly wondered whether or not it was thunder while thinking about that last remark. He knew a little about nerves, they had taught him in school that they let his body move. And that the word could mean "self-  
confidence", another thing he could use. He decided that she could be helpful and smiled. "Thanks. What is NERV and why me?"

Misato looked at Ryoga. Here was a young man, maybe seventeen or eighteen, clean-shaven with black hair that hadn t seen or needed a comb in a year. He wore a yellow headband with black squares, a yellow tunic, and black pants with leather shoes. All dusty, of course, and his face was fairly weathered for someone so young. She briefly toyed with the idea that Gendo had lost his mind and rejected it before pushing a brown paper packet at Ryoga. "Everything you ll need to know is inside there. We ll get you an ID card later; I couldn t find a current picture. We tried to erase your records before picking you up, but..."

Ryoga grew a sweatdrop. Of course she hadn t found any records. He had been wandering around for years, never able to stay long enough to get paperwork done. As far as he was aware, he had never had to worry about a paper trail.

The booming sound was very loud now, almost too much to talk over. "As for why you re here... We need you to stop something."

"What am I doing wrong now?" Ryoga prepared for an attack. Whenever a woman told him that he was doing something wrong, the woman hit him at the same time. And it was always his fault. Or Ranma s, but mostly his. "I wasn t doing anything." That would never work, they never believed that you were innocent, even Akane just jumped to conclusions. "Why are you laughing like that?"

Misato managed to stop giggling and pointed out the driver s window. "No, Hibiki-kun, I mean we need you to stop THAT."

THAT turned out to be big. Six or seven stories tall. Ryoga had the absurd thought that it looked just like the uniforms that he saw on a cartoon he saw a few months ago, except for the three-fingered hands, and that red thing on the belly, and of course that it was huge and walking around without anybody inside of it. It was pretty funny looking, for a THAT. "Sure, but then you need to turn around. I can t stop it if you keep driving away from it." Ryoga had also learned that it was usually a good idea to do what a woman asked, because they might feed you afterwards.

From the look on her face, it wasn t the right answer. "Exactly what do you want to do to it?"

"Stop it, right?"

"HOW?! Hibiki-kun, that is an Angel. A big walking robot. What are you going to do, walk up and hit it?"

Ryoga put two and two together. "Then hitting it wouldn t work, right? I could use a telephone pole." Ryoga knew he was no expert on western theology, but he doubted that an angel would be affected much by that either.

Misato considered that for a second before filing it away. "I have a better idea. Just keep reading the packet."

Misato stopped the car for a second on the rise before the tramway. Looking down on Tokyo-3, she could see the Angel just inside the suburb where she had found Ryoga. Of course it would have been a suburb on the other side of town from Nerima, where Gendo had told her to start looking. It was still walking toward the city center, heedless of the dozens of rockets pounding on its exterior.

Ryoga, meanwhile, was still leafing through the packet. He could read rather well, if it wasn t a map or something, and even though the papers were full of things like "emergency procedures" and "contingency plans" and "operating manual", he could follow the basic meaning. NERV was obviously a secret organization bent on world conquest.

Misato noticed a break in the bombardment. The Angel had destroyed most of the firing platforms, but not this many... She immediately threw herself back in the car and shouted, "Get down!"

Ryoga had just enough time to appreciate the lenience of time on Misato s appearance when the car was picked up and thrown like a rag doll. He flashed back to an unfortunate accident with a glass of cold water, a laundry machine, and a sniggering Ranma. The car came to rest on its side, several hundred feet up the hill.

Misato managed to climb out the top hatch. "Damn, they used an N2 bomb on it! The UN must be desperate." She hauled Ryoga out of the car by his bandana heavy for a kid that age, too and shook him a little. As near as she could tell, his only injury was a slight nosebleed, far less than the various bumps and bruises she had suffered. "Hibiki-kun, come on. We ve got to get going. Help me get the car back up."

Ryoga came to his senses, and caught up with Misato s words after a second. Pivoting his hand neatly on the top of the car, he vaulted it, came down on the other side, and gave it a quick push. The car immediately tipped over and rocked for a second before calming down. "Let s go, Katsuragi-san."

Misato climbed in to her once beautiful car and she had just finished the payments on it! and drove the rest of the way to the tramway. She didn t look at Ryoga for the whole trip, and tried not to think about how he had so casually tossed her car back upright. She even had to listen to him try to apologize for pushing it too hard, he really hadn t meant to, how was he supposed to know it was mostly plastic? Maybe Gendo had a good idea after all, here.

Misato herded Ryoga onto a long escalator. They were in the Geofront now, a huge excavation under Tokyo-3, in the NERV headquarters. She was trying to explain what was going on, but Ryoga didn t seem to be listening very hard. He was spending a lot of time looking around with wide eyes and a slack jaw. This whole thing might be a bit much for him, maybe? And on top of meeting his father... - Misato wasn t looking forward to that. Gendo had occasionally mentioned a wife and son that had abandoned him, ten years ago or so, but it had never meant anything. "So, what do you think of meeting your father, Hibiki-kun?"

Ryoga stopped staring and looked at Misato. "My father? You found him?"

"Yes, he s waiting for you down here." Misato watched Ryoga clench a fist at his side. Yes, she really wasn t looking forward to those two meeting each other.

"I can t believe him! He ran off what, ten years ago?! He left Mom and me! Where has he been hiding all this time!?" Ryoga was furious. After his father had left, all those years ago, he really didn t have a family. Sure, Mom was there, but he d only seen her once since. They just never made it home at the same time...

Misato didn t know what to think. Sure, Gendo was a class A jerk at times. Sure, he had as much humanity as his desk on some days. Still, he always took his responsibilities seriously along with everything else and he seemed genuinely angry when he thought of his missing son. Obviously there was more going on here.

"Gendo-san? It s time. Your son is on his way to the hangars with Captain Katsuragi."

Gendo Hibiki looked up from the reports on his desk. To be honest, this was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. Here was the Angels, NERV s reason to exist, finally here, and he had to go bawl out his son for running off all those years ago. It was the least important thing of a host of very important things, but everything else had to wait on it. "I ll meet him there."

"Yes sir. And one thing..."

"What?"

"You re going the wrong way. That s the bathroom door, sir."

Ryoga looked around in the vast hangar. It was mostly empty space and catwalks, with the exception of one thing. That one thing was a large, bright purple robot standing up by a wall. The robot looked very different from all of the anime robots he d see occasionally; it was thin and willowy and had really stupid looking shoulder plates way above the shoulder. The horn was pretty silly too.

Misato pointed and said, "There, Hibiki-kun. That s Unit 01."

Ryoga looked back at her and asked, "So why am I here."

"You are here to pilot it, Ryoga."

Both Ryoga and Misato looked up. Gendo was standing on another catwalk, higher up than the other two, resting his white gloves on the rail. "Ryoga, you must pilot the Eva."

Ryoga was seething. The beard, the glasses, everything was the same he remembered of his father, except for a wrinkle here or there. "You! How could you leave Mom like that! She was worried sick about you!"

Misato looked on with an expression of shock. Gendo replied, "I never left your mother. She took you from me. Stop arguing and get in the Eva."

"Quit trying to change the subject! Ten years ago, you left us!"

"I did no such thing. I went out, spent six months trying to get home, and when I got back, both of you were gone. She must have left with you!"

"Left with me? She waited a month! Then she wandered off somewhere..."

"Wait a minute. She didn t run off? You didn t run away? I went back twice, nobody was home either time."

"You mean you didn t run off? Of course nobody was home, I can t find the place, neither can Mom, you know that Dad."

"Don t call me Dad. Where is your mother now?"

"I haven t been home in a while. Nothing s too dusty, so I know she makes it every so often... more often than me, anyway."

By this time, Misato was completely lost and both Gendo and Ryoga had grown sweatdrops. Gendo recovered first and said, "We can talk later. Get in the Eva and fight, Ryoga."

"Eva? What s an Eva?"

Misato made shooing gestures at an approaching blonde in a lab coat. "Not now, Ritsuko. Now, Hibiki-kun, the robot over there is an Eva."

"I thought that was Unit 01 or something like that."

Grinding noises issued from Misato s teeth. "Yes, Hibiki-kun, it is the Evangelion Unit 01 Test Type. It was made to fight Angels like that one we saw earlier. You have to pilot it."

Ryoga stepped back a foot. "How? I m not a robot pilot. Don t you have robot pilots or something? I just do martial arts. I don t know how to pilot a robot. Why me?"

Gendo interrupted Ryoga. "Because you are the only one who can, Ryoga."

Ryoga considered this for a second. "No, I can t do it. I don t pilot robots. I never wanted to pilot a robot anyway, that stuff is just in cartoons, right?"

"You don t have a choice. Get in the Eva, Ryoga."

"No! I can t pilot it. Go get a real pilot."

Gendo quickly saw the futility of arguing with Ryoga and decided on another strategy. "Fuyutsuki, reconfigure Unit 01 for Rei and sortie her. This pilot is unusable."

"But sir, Rei is..." Fuyutsuki looked genuinely concerned.

"It doesn t matter. Get her out here."

Misato was still trying to talk Ryoga into piloting the Eva. "Come on, Hibiki-kun, it s easy. Didn t you read the instructions I gave you? Besides, it s a cool robot. It ll help you get girls. Please, Hibiki-  
kun?" Ryoga was not entirely immune to batted eyelashes, but in this case, he decided to be stubborn. After all, his father would be the perfect type of person to lie about running away. This way, he could go away and not worry about seeing Gendo again. Yes, it s better to refuse. I couldn t do it anyway. I just wish Katsuragi-san would stop looking at me like that; it s not making this any easier as he tried to ignore her pleading.

She was interrupted as a door on the far end of the catwalk opened. Five people, wearing white coats (doctors?) pushed a gurney along the catwalk. As the gurney passed Ryoga, he saw that there was a girl on it, although she was wearing so many bandages that it was hard to tell. Ryoga guessed that she d been mauled by some ancient demon... after all, people usually didn t live through ordinary injuries that were that bad.

"What are you thinking, Gendo? Rei isn t in any condition to pilot the Eva!" Misato s face showed raw fury. "She s almost dead already!"

"It can t be helped. There is no one else. She must pilot Unit 01."

Ryoga stiffened. He was fairly familiar with severe injuries and knew that she d be lucky to survive standing up, much less moving around. Making her pilot the robot was... well, it was wrong.

The Angel reached the outskirts of Tokyo-3, and began its attack. A huge pillar of green-white fire lit up the dusk as a building disappeared into shrapnel. The pillar split five hundred feet in the air, branching horizontally and continuing up, forming the cross.

The hangar was battle-hardened, but this was the first time the hardening was put to the test. Unfortunately, though, it proved to be a little too soft.

The ground shook and everybody looked up. Ryoga heard a grinding noise coming from the beams supporting the cavern ceiling. His senses kicked into high gear as metal gave way. The falling beams looked heavy, maybe a thousand pounds each, but they couldn t kill him from only fifty feet of falling. Ryoga spared an instant to look around. The technicians were thirty feet away, and neither they nor the girl would avoid anything. Too far. Gendo was above and away, out of the path damn and Misato was... was standing right next to him, and the beam would flatten her like a pancake. No choice. Ryoga threw himself over Misato, braced one arm against the catwalk and locked the joint. If the floor could hold the pressure, they d both make it. He heard the scream of twisting metal.

To Gendo, the movements were a blur. The doctors hadn t moved an inch, but Ryoga had flattened Misato (huh?) just before the beams hit. Then his view was blocked by dust from the ceiling, and he heard the clank of metal on metal. "Rei! No, Rei! Noooo!"

Misato opened her eyes. She saw Ryoga, face clenched and eyes closed, and behind him a slab of ceiling armor. She scooted out from under him and looked around. Two of the doctors had been hit, and neither was going to make it. The other two had fallen and knocked the gurney over. Rei was not on the gurney. Not on the gurney? There she was, a few feet closer on the catwalk...

With a giant purple hand over her body. Unit 01 s hand. Misato got the feeling that some strange things were going on.

"Er... excuse me, Katsuragi-san, but this thing s really heavy. Could you get it off of me?" Ryoga s voice. She looked back at him, under a plate that should have smeared him into paste. It had bent and deformed, and Ryoga s hand had twisted the catwalk almost through. She tried to prop it up while he rolled away, and almost dropped it on him. Her momentary fancy that he d been hit by styrofoam armor was shattered; it really WAS metal plate. She turned to look at him.

Ryoga had figured that Misato was fine. After all, the catwalk had held. He was just glad she had moved away quickly; the last thing he needed then was to be in what would have been a... um... "compromising" position. He checked the others. Two dead (crushed skull, crushed chest, no chance), one broken arm, one unhurt... What was that hand doing there? It was right over the girl, who had fallen off during the mess. He stepped over to her, not even noticing his own injuries. That was really heavy, after all. She lay face-up, eyes open, pupils dilated, and twitching. Good thing that hand was there, as it was, she might not have survived the fall. He looked closely, checking for broken bones and such. Blue hair, but he was used to such things. The eyes were red, which was ordinarily a bad sign, but they weren t glowing and she wasn t about to launch a ki attack anyway. Not all of the blood on her bandages had dried.

Gendo called out to Ryoga. "Pick her up and put her over there, in the entry plug. Hurry! We need to launch the robot."

This didn t sit well with Ryoga. He could ignore his father asking him, he could ignore Misato, but he really, really didn t like it when helpless people got hurt in a fight. He could feel himself getting angry, feel the vengeance-lust that had driven him for so many years. "If we move her, she ll die." Ryoga didn t like lying either (she d just be crippled for life, probably) but it beat the alternative. "I ll pilot the robot. Tell me how."

"Get in that seat over there. Hurry, there s not much time. Misato, get to Central Command. Fuyutsuki, get a medical team to hangar seven. I ll be in Central Command. Hurry, Ryoga!"

Ryoga was in deep now. He had jumped into the metal tube, found a seat inside, and looked around as they closed the hatch. It was dim, red lights everywhere. He couldn t see how he was supposed to drive the thing, there was just two handles. Maybe you pushed and pulled them to make the legs work. What about the arms? Nope, just two sticks. He looked for instructions, but half of the readings were too complicated and the other half were English. Serves me right for missing English class. Even if it wasn t my fault. He noticed a pair of metal things on his seat, and started bouncing them on his palm. They looked like iron-plated orange halves.

"Hibiki-kun? Can you hear me?" Misato s voice, clear but with the static of radio.

"Yes, I hear you. What do I do now?"

"First, stick the neural interface plugs on your scalp. You need them to pilot the Eva." Ryoga tucked them into his headband. "Don t worry about it. You read the manual, right? Eva is pretty easy to operate." Sure, if he had read the manual. He thought it would have been a good idea to save it for last. Stupid mistake, as usual. "Don t hold your breath, we re putting the LCL in now."

He noticed the fluid in the bottom of the container and panicked. "Hey! No! Stop the water! Katsuragi-san!"

"Hibiki-kun, that s not water. It s LCL, you can breathe it, don t worry about it."

Like hell he wasn t worried about it. He was going to have a hard enough time piloting this thing as a human. Plus everybody would find out about his curse. No, no water for Ryoga. "Hell, I ll breathe air. I don t need the LCL." He tested it with his finger. Thicker than water, a little viscous, but warm. Even water wouldn t set him off at that temperature... but he never took chances with water.

"It absorbs shock, Hibiki-kun. You d get tossed around in there without it."

"Sorry, I just don t like water much."

"That s not water, I told you. Just breathe it."

After a couple of coughs, Ryoga found that he could indeed breathe the stuff. It felt a little strange, but not bad. "Fine, now how do I drive it?" He heard a faint "whirr" noise and noticed movement. He guessed that they had to put his tube in the robot.

"We have to load the entry plug into the Eva first, Ryoga. Wait a minute."

"We re past the absolute borderline. Synchronization established." Dr. Ritsuko Akagi looked worried. Of course, Misato would be worried too, if it were HER robot creation being hooked up to an untested pilot using HER technology and HER fault if they all died because it didn t work.

"Launch Unit 01."

"Unit 01, launching." Aoba was all business now. Misato thought for a moment. Yes, this was the moment they d all been training and building for, the first time that an Eva would go forth to defend Mankind from the horrible power of the Angels... and they d picked Ryoga as the pilot. Nepotism was a horrible thing, and the last thing she d have expected from Gendo. It wasn t that Ryoga was bad, but he seemed to be a little slow on the uptake. "Hibiki-kun, you alright?"

\"Yes, fine. This feels really weird, though."/

"You ll get used to it. Remember, when you get to the surface, just think and Eva will move. Don t play with the levers yet, they re only to use the guns properly. Just think."

\"Sure. I can do that."/

The monitor showed Eva 01 emerging from the tunnel shaft. Its head cocked upwards from the spare inertia, but the unit was undamaged. It seemed the launching system worked pretty well too. "Release the docking clamps." Misato tensed a bit at the thought of fighting the Angel. "Okay, Ryoga. Just think of walking, alright. Walk for me."

Eva 01 took two steps forward, tripped over its power cord, and fell on its face. The front spike demolished a small lingerie store on the street corner. \"Help! I can t move this thing!"/

"Get up, Hibiki-kun! Hurry!" Secondary monitors showed the Angel turning the corner and heading for Unit 01. Inexplicably, it was now carrying several large billboards in one hand.

\"How do I get up, damn it?!"/

The Angel threw a billboard at the Eva, knocking it backwards onto its rump. While Unit 01 s arms and legs jerked, trying to find some purchase, the Angel struck with a string of billboards, snaring Unit 01 s arm.

"It s caught the arm in a AT field!" Aoba.

"The neural signal is reversing! It s backfeeding into the pilot!" Ritsuko.

Misato shouted into the commlink. "Hibiki-kun, that s not your arm it s got. It s not your arm!"

\"Damn it, how do I fight this thing! I can t move it!"/

The Angel wrapped another length of billboards around Unit 01 s head, and twisted the neck. The purple of the Evangelion s hull mixed with the red fluid from a crack in its neck.

"Hibiki-kun! NO!"

With a heave, the Angel flipped Unit 01 into the side of a nearby building.

"We ve lost contact with the pilot!" Aoba.

"Eject the entry plug! Recover the pilot!"

"We can t! The Eva is blocking the signal!" Maya.

Ritsuko tapped keys at her station. "The neural links are disconnecting. It will shut down soon."

Ryoga was pissed. He couldn t use this robot worth anything. Hell, a telephone pole would be better. He also wasn t used to hurting, not like this, even from being hit with broken wood and being flung through triple-reinforced concrete shouldn t hurt this much. His vision went red...

Unit 01 slumped against the side of the building. Something had cracked during that throw, and the Eva was spraying blood all over the street.

"Is the pilot alive?" How the hell could Gendo be so cold asking that about his own son?

"We can t get a signal. No readings from the entry plug." Maya.

Unit 01 s head came up, its eyes glowing white.

"Motor neurons are firing. The Eva is moving again." Ritsuko.

"Still no signal from the entry plug." Maya.

"The computer signals are being refused!" Aoba.

Unit 01 s face cracked, a lipless mouth with jagged metal teeth. It screamed, loud and deep.

Misato turned to look at Ritsuko. "A berserker?!"

The Eva was walking from the center of the blast crater. Dark purple, streaked with its own blood, and the Angel s blood, against a backdrop of red and yellow. It was almost pretty... if you could ignore the fact that it had just torn off the Angel s arms and legs and hammered on its core with its own rib until it blew itself up in desperation.

It stopped, slumped to its knees. The glow faded from its eyes.

Misato moved some papers out of Ritsuko s spare chair. Her office, assigned to the Technical Director, was always a mess. "How s Ryoga doing?"

Ritsuko looked up from her terminal. "Pretty good, considering what happened. The doctors should be done with him in a few minutes."

Misato smiled at Ritsuko. She obviously was thinking about something other than Ryoga s condition. "Out with it, Ritsuko. What s wrong?"

The smile wasn t returned. "I ve been going over what just happened. Unit 01 should be badly damaged. AT field exposure, physical trauma, all of that. But aside from the head, the armor s barely even dented. It s like the Angel was pulling its punches."

"No way."

"You re right, too. It was hitting Ryoga, it s just that Ryoga wasn t getting hurt."

"And what about earlier?"

"When Gendo tells me that he saw it happen, then I ll believe it."

"There s his handprint in the catwalk! Did you think he stamped it there or something?"

Ritsuko looked back at her terminal. "Easier to believe than Ryoga getting smashed with a block of armor plate and not even being bruised."

"You re hopeless." Misato threw up her hands, drained her mug of (well-  
spiked) coffee and walked out the office door.

"Hey, Akane, look at this."

Akane was in a good mood. Ranma hadn t said one thing wrong all day, no insults, no "tomboy", no "uncute", no fianc es glomping on to him every minute. She decided to be nice to Ranma today. "What is it, Ranma? We ve got to get to class. There s a lot to catch up on after that drill yesterday..."

Ranma was perched on the rail of the culvert. "No, really, check this out. It s that dojo destroyer guy! He s in the water down here."

Akane took a look of her own. Yes, that was him, all four hundred pounds of muscle and three ounces of brain. He was lying face down in the water. "Why is he smoking like that?"

Ranma snorted. "Figures that big ox would set himself on fire or something. Come on, you tomboy. We ve got to get to school."

"Ranma..."

End of Part 1

Send comments, flames, et cetera to akent 


	2. Chapter 2

Misato knocked on the room s door. Ryoga had been checked out, and the doctors had cleared him; no brain injuries, no physical damage, ice pack for that bruise on his neck. She still didn t understand why they weren t both dead. That plate should have been more than enough... oh, well. They d figure it out later.

"Come in." Ryoga s voice, quiet, but not hurting. Good sign, that. She opened the door and saw him sitting on the edge of his bed. He still wore the same things she had seen him in earlier: headband, sleeveless tunic, pants, rope belt. The neural interface modules were stuck into his headband. He blinked at the light and smiled. "They say I ll be fine. What are you doing here, Katsuragi-san?"

Misato came in and shut the door. "Well, Hibiki-kun, I m here to take you home." That was a really good idea, Ritsuko always had the best ideas. If Ryoga tried to go home himself, no telling where he d end up. "You did a good job today, Hibiki-kun." Well, he actually was thrown around and knocked out, but you couldn t just tell him that. Besides, at least it had worked out. "Come on, let s go."

Ryoga bent over, started to tug his shoes on. "Go where? I haven t been home in months, but I do know it s a pretty good ways from here. You don t need to worry about it. I m used to wandering around." Why was he smiling? "Besides, there s not anything special at home. I can sleep or eat anywhere, doesn t make any difference either way."

Misato smiled to herself. Ritsuko didn t have ALL the good ideas. "Yeah, well, I ve got a better idea. Just come on, I ll show you." She gestured towards the door. He stood up, still smiling.

"Sure, it s not like I had plans."

Paradise Lost, part 2 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi Or Gainax, respectively.

Ryoga watched as Misato opened the door to her apartment. She threw that long package into a corner of her entry and said, "We re home!" Nice apartment, really, although he knew he wouldn t know a nice apartment from a condo. It just felt comfortable. "Hey, Hibiki-kun, come on in."

Ryoga set down his backpack as Misato headed for the kitchen. She was humming something. Well, whatever she had needed, she could pick it up and then they could get going to wherever they were going. Not that it mattered, anyway. One place was as good as another... with a few notable exceptions, of course.

He entered the kitchen to find Misato leaning back in a chair at the table, drinking what looked suspiciously like a beer. Really drinking, can-in-a-single-gulp drinking. "Ah, Misato, don t you think that you shouldn t do that before driving?" He d been hit by drunk drivers before, and it gave him little consolation that their cars had been damaged more than he had been. Not everybody was a martial artist, damn it.

She looked up at him with a puzzled expression. "Driving? I m home."

"Yes, you re home, but you wanted to take me somewhere, remember?"

"And here you are. Welcome home, Ryoga."

Hey, since when had he been "Ryoga"? Waitaminit. "Welcome Home"? His panic mode was clicking in... obviously somebody had said something that he hadn t heard right. He tried again. "This is your home, Misato." Just how many beers had she had in those five seconds? She didn t LOOK too drunk.

Misato smiled. "Yes, well, now it s yours too. I thought you could stay here for a while. Hey, put some dinner on, will you?"

Yes, she had definitely had too much to drink. Time to make an exit, definitely. Maybe he could find Nerima by next week, talk with Ranma about this. Yeah, that was it. Dr. Tofu could give him something for these hallucinations he d been having. Cologne could bang his head against more rocks. He could try to beat Ranma senseless again. That kind of thing made sense. Ryoga knew that his living in ONE place didn t make any sense at all. "Huh?" Obviously his mouth wasn t working yet, better start backing up to get some cover. "Whaaaa?" He needed to stall. "What was that? Me stay here? What why?" Yes, very drunk. Her cheeks were really red... very drunk indeed.

"Hey! Ryoga-kun! Earth to Ryoga-kun!" That was Misato. "I m just going to lend you a spare room. Hey!" Nope, still not making sense. "What s gotten into you? We can t just let you wander off." That REALLY didn t make sense. Everybody let him wander off. "What happens when you re not around when the next Angel comes?" Hey, that made some sense. "So I ve got to keep track of you somehow. OK?"

Ryoga s mind settled back into his normal state. "OH! Oh. Oh, OK. That s all right, I don t mind." He still didn t get it, but at least it wouldn t kill him to borrow some floor space. It was dark out there, after all. "Dinner? Where?"

"Drinks in the fridge, food in the pantry. You can cook, right?" Come to think of it, she wasn t drunk at all. No slurring of speech, and she looked lucid. "Pots under the stove."

By some minor miracle, he found the pantry on the first try. Inside, he found piles of instant ramen, television dinners, and microwavable meals. He picked out the ramen on top and started the water boiling. Pressed the open button on the fridge. "Huh?" The fridge racks held row after row of cold beer. Great for a party, but he wasn t a drinker. "Where s the soda?"

"Bottom row, under the beer."

Ryoga was grumbling a bit before he finished. "Which bottom row? They re all beer." He couldn t find his way around the kitchen either. Still, he managed to whip up the ramen. "Let s eat." By this time, Misato had grabbed another beer.

"Ah, instant ramen is pretty good, right Ryoga?"

Well, it wasn t bad. "Yes." In fact, he d rather be eating Akane s cooking. Even though it hit like a fist in the stomach, it was really nourishing... well no. He was really glad he wasn t eating Akane s cooking, even though he missed her. He d learned to make do with what he found, but that was a bit much. Maybe he d teach her to cook one day.

"Ryoga, what are you thinking about?"

Sputter. "N, n, nothing. Just eating over here."

Misato looked sincerely worried. "Well, sorry, everything here is instant." She was on another beer. "Probably not what you re used to."

Actually, it was much tastier than what he was used to. If he had to eat one more root, ever, it would be two too many. "Don t worry. First rule of the road is to never turn down free food." He lived by those rules of the road; hell, he wasn t ever off the road.

"Rule of the road?"

This was painful to remember. "Yeah, Dad taught them to me when I was little, before he ran off. He gets lost easy, you know that?" Misato nodded. "Well, it must be genetic. Really early on, I started getting lost too, and he told me everything he had ever learned about getting lost." There wasn t much to it, come to think of it. Good thing, he had only been six. "Never turn down free food. Carry a change of clothes. Any roof is better than the best bush at night. Don t take shortcuts. Ask everybody for directions. Hitchhike if possible. When you re stuck somewhere, be nice to the landlord. Stay away from his daughters." Not like that had ever been a problem for Ryoga. "Carry bandages, ointment, and three bandanas."

She was laughing a little. "Three bandanas?" Of course, three bandanas. One for the top, one for the face, one for a bandage. He had maybe two dozen, himself. "Where does Gendo keep three bandanas?" Now she was really laughing. "And ointment and bandages?"

Come to think of it, he hadn t used his ointment in a while. After all he d been through, the bushes just couldn t seem to scratch him anymore. "Yeah, well, it works. Did he really just wander off? We always thought he had left Mom for another woman."

"No way. Gendo wouldn t go for a woman if he was being paid."

"Hey, I m here. Don t talk about him like that."

"That s not what I meant. He s just cold, really cold. No emotions. Except for Rei, maybe."

"Rei?" That name jigged something in Ryoga s memory. "Who s Rei?"

"She s the other Evangelion pilot. Blue hair, remember?"

He remembered. "What the hell happened to her? I ve never seen anyone torn up that badly and live."

"There was an... accident two weeks ago. Synchronization test. We had been trying for six months to get her to synchronize with Eva. It finally worked, but the Eva went crazy. She ejected inside the hangar. Almost died. Gendo was really, really upset."

Gah. That had to be painful. "Eva can go berserk?"

"Hey, where were you earlier? How do you think you won that fight?"

"I don t know, it sort of went fuzzy for a while. You mean I went berserk too?"

"Do you normally put your fist through concrete walls, Ryoga?"

Sweatdrop time. "Well, to put it bluntly, yes."

Misato s eyes bugged out. Maybe it was the beer, six so far. "What?"

"Well, whenever I get mad, I punch a wall out. Sometimes I do it by accident. I hope you re insured." Not just for that, but he didn t say that. God, how did Nabiki pay insurance on the Tendo dojo? Must cost a fortune. "It s kind of hard to explain."

"We ve got all night."

"You asked for it. The Ryoga Hibiki life story, volume one."

"Here, have a beer first."

"Thanks." Ryoga had had beer before. Sometimes people thought they were being funny, giving beer to the lost kid. Sometimes it was all there was to drink. He d never been drunk, though. Beer just didn t work on his system, it seemed. "Here goes. Early childhood is a fog. It was me, Mom, Dad. They always said that the only thing they could ever find was each other. Once I started school, we didn t see each other much. Dad could always find me, though. Then he left, and one day Mom was gone too. She was around, somebody was dusting the place anyway, but we never bumped into each other.

"I never could make friends in school. Absent too much, you see. Then, I met this kid in middle school. Real jerk, but hey, it s what I had, right? I got tired of him stealing my lunch and challenged him to a fight. That s another thing Dad taught me, a little martial arts. Anyway, I got lost on the way to the fight, and the kid took off. Turns out his father took him to train in China. I went after him. I was that kind of guy, you know?

"I spent two years in China, sometimes just missing them, sometimes in the mountains or desert for weeks. It wasn t bad; I learned some Chinese, learned to cook, learned some kenpo. Then, I finally caught up with them, at a place called Jusenkyo." Whoa, whoa! Don t tell her everything. She d probably eat me! "Something really bad happened there. I followed the guy back to Japan, turned out it had happened to his dad and him too, but different. He was engaged to this girl, and they really didn t like each other, and she s really nice, so... well, I ve been a few places since, but I can always get back to Nerima eventually. Crazy place, the dojo." Misato was grinning again. "And then you pulled up and stuck me in a robot."

"Well, well. What s her name, Ryoga?"

Eep. "Oh, no you don t. You ve got to go next." It just might work.

Her smile disappeared. "Well, all right." Hey! It worked. "Most of my childhood was normal. My dad was a real prick, though. Quiet type, no affection, kind of like your dad."

"No, he was really nice until he took off."

"Well, you know what I mean. Then, he took me off to look at some things in Antarctica. Research and things. Well, that was fifteen years ago. You know what happened there."

Everybody knew that. "Second Impact. Yeah, meteor hit. Pretty nasty. How d you make it?"

"Wrong, Ryoga. That s what we tell people. The Angels made the Second Impact happen. I saw it myself. It killed my father, everybody. That s why I m here."

The Angels could do THAT? Cool. "That s why we re fighting them, then."

"Yes, it is."

"Well, then what?"

"The end of the world, if we lose."

"No, I mean then what happened? That was fifteen years ago."

"Oh! Well, after that, I kind of went into a shell. Grandparents had arranged a marriage, all of that, but the guy ran off with the kid after a couple of years. I decided to start over, go to college. That s when I joined up with NERV. After that, it s all work, until now."

Ryoga yawned. All of this story swapping was tiring. "Well, that s normal, at least."

She was looking at him again. "Normal? That s weird. What do you mean, normal?"

"Well, you re not a Chinese Amazon warrior or anything. You didn t take up okonomiyaki cooking as a martial art. You don t poison people s food. Your fianc e isn t a transsexual. You don t have a demon in a tiger-striped bikini hanging around you."

"I ve got purple hair."

"Yeah, right. It s black hair with dye." Beer can impact. "Well, your roots are showing." Another impact. "It s okay, really. The only purple-hair girl I know is a real..." Hey! That one was still full. "what s the word? Um. Er." Oh, damn, that one s OPEN. "Sorry sorry sorry! I didn t mean it!"

Misato drank the beer. "Jeez. Don t you know not to talk about things like that to a woman?"

Another sweatdrop. "Well, no. I haven t had a chance to meet many women." Come to think of it, that was really stupid. He shouldn t have said something like that. If she d been just a bit angrier, he d be covered with cold beer and she d have a pig roast. "Sorry, it does really look nice."

"Well, I forgive you. Just don t tell anybody." Smiling again, thank God. "It s easy to see in a crowd. Kind of a command thing. It s in the NERV manual."

This could be a problem. "Do I have to?"

"Are you kidding? That headband is like a traffic sign. Anyway, where did you get all of those weird ideas? Life isn t like that."

"Yours isn t, maybe. Well, maybe it is, now. Hell, I m here."

"That s enough for the night. Hit the showers, kid. First door on the left. Need help finding it?"

"Thank you, no."

Ritsuko was still going over papers in her office. Nothing made any sense. Yes, it was all well and good that Ryoga had won the battle, but exactly what had made the Eva go berserk like that? And why wasn t it damaged?

Start from the top. The pilot, Ryoga Hibiki, unknown physical abilities.

(Misato said that he got hit by that armor plate.)

No evidence of pain reactions.

(Didn t even notice the tests. Didn t even notice the cattle prod she had sneaked in under her lab coat.)

But he knew what pain was.

(That was him screaming in the entry plug; she had the recordings, he was saying "it hurts, it hurts" there and there.)

The Eva could hurt him. It put its signal into his mind.

What if it worked both ways? Unit 01 s mind and Ryoga s body? Could it have become like him?

That was impossible, though. That was just a neural signal. It couldn t stop an Angel.

(His body couldn t have stopped that plate. But she had seen the handprint!)

AND he wasn t fourteen. Obviously all that crap Gendo had been going on about was just that. Original sin, huh?

Who was Ryoga Hibiki?

"Damn, but we re really going to have to work on this scenario, Fuyutsuki." Gendo was still pissed. Everything was going to plan, but it turns out that his son is a loud-mouth, not a mentally disturbed recluse like they told him. His reactions were totally different. Good thing, though, Misato was important to the plan and he had saved her life. How the hell HAD he saved her life? No matter, just life paying him back a little. Clean living, maybe.

"We ve got time, Gendo. This just might work, you know."

Gendo smiled, thin, really just a twitch of the corner of his mouth, but he was happily pissed. "So it might." Maybe this whole thing would be for the better anyhow... "Is Rei all right?"

"Yes, she wasn t injured. More injured. She ll recover soon, the doctors say."

"Good." And it was, really. "Where s Ryoga?"

"Misato found him a place to stay."

"That s not an answer, Fuyutsuki."

"Well, ah. It s her place."

Snort. "Just like her. Tell her to keep a good eye on him; we need him here until Rei is recovered. Don t let him out of sight for a minute, got that?"

"Don t teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Gendo."

"Shut up, Fuyutsuki. I m not in the mood. I ll be at the hospital."

"Yes you are in the mood, you re smiling. Hey! Gendo! Turn around, that s not the elevator. Gendo get back here! Gendo!"

Misato sat and thought, nursing another beer. Ryoga seemed fairly normal, for all the strange stuff he d been through. Whatever happened at that Jusenkyo place, it must have been horrible, he flinched when thinking about it. She wouldn t ask him about it, just like she wouldn t answer him if he asked her about her son. God, but he must be Ryoga s age by now. How was he doing? How was her no-good ex-husband doing, for that matter? The bald fruit. She couldn t recall what she d ever seen in that guy. Not like...

A scream issued from the bathroom. Moments later, Ryoga came tearing around the corner, wearing nothing but his bandana (huh?) and yelling like the place was on fire. "P, p, p, p... penguin?"

Just after, Pen-pen came ambling in from the hallway and settled himself in his freezer.

Misato grinned again. "Guess I should have warned you, that s my pet. He s a warm-water penguin. Pen-pen, by name."

Ryoga was still panting. Come to think of it, that shirt really didn t do him justice; he was muscled really heavily. Must be more to wandering around than walking, it seemed. He still hadn t noticed his lack of attire. "Penguin? Warm water penguin. OH! All right, OK, warm water." He seemed REALLY relieved at that.

"Ryoga, shouldn t you put something on?"

Misato had never known somebody could turn beet red that quickly. He left even more quickly than he had arrived, still yelling. "Hey! Take those neural units out of your hair first!" Idiot.

Ryoga was just about to fall asleep in his room. He had taken the time to unpack. Clothes in the closet. Extra shoes on the floor. Umbrella in the corner. Teapot and thermos on the shelf. Akane had given him that thermos, never knowing (thank God) what a godsend it was. It wasn t a hand-knitted muffler, though. He was on his futon.

Misato knocked on the door. "Hey, Ryoga?"

"Yeah?"

"How come we re not dead?"

She was pretty sloshed by now, he guessed. Man, but she could put them away! Out-drink Happosai, maybe. That thought didn t make him any more comfortable. "I killed the Angel. You know more about that than me."

"No, I mean the ceiling thing."

Oh, that. "I told you I studied some martial arts. Remember that guy I know? He s got another girlfriend or two on the side, besides the fianc e, and one of them has this really nosy grandmother. She wanted her granddaughter to get him, and I... I kind of like... well, you get the idea. Anyway, she taught me how to break rocks and things, but it wasn t for the rock breaking, it just was to make me tough. Really tough. That kind of thing doesn t hurt me now. Come to think of it, not much hurts anymore."

"Except your heart, right?"

That struck way too close to home. "And piloting the Eva. That hurt like hell, I think. How come?"

"I ll ask Ritsuko, she knows everything. I just wanted to say thanks. For both times."

"Good night, Misato." If she was going to call him Ryoga, well, then he d call her Misato. Besides, she had laughed at him earlier! He had almost gotten into water with a penguin! Thank goodness it s a warm water penguin, that might save his butt later.

"See you in the morning, Ryoga."

Misato s world blurred into focus. Mornings were hell. Always have been. No reason for the things to exist at all. At least you could sleep through the things.

"Good morning, Misato." Erk! It was... Ryoga! Yes, Ryoga, and he was up, and was that cooking? And it was ten or eleven AM, too. Look at the clock, Misato. Seven fifteen. God, I ve taken up living with a morning person. The Angels could just come in and blow the world to hell; she d seen and done everything.

She shrugged her way out of bed and regretted it immediately. Too much beer last night. It s always too much, but what the hell, right? Mornings aren t worth saving anyway. Somehow she got dressed (sort of) and tidied (sort of) and staggered her way into the kitchen for breakfast.

Ryoga saw Misato stagger into the kitchen. Well, of course she was hung over, she was drunk last night. It s just natural, after all. She headed straight for the fridge, her slippers scuffing the floor tiles, and pulled out a beer. This early? He d stick with toast, himself. Good thing even Misato kept bread around.

She slammed half the beer and let out a whoop. "Ah, that s it! Much better. Now I can face the day." With that she attacked the toast Ryoga had prepared for himself. He was kind of used to this kind of thing too, come to think of it. (Remember, don t eat next to Genma, right?) He put on another two slices of toast and sat down.

"Hair of the dog, Misato?"

"I don t get it."

He hadn t expected her to. "Odd English saying. I picked it up in Hawaii." There were benefits of getting lost.

"Always wanted to go there."

"Yeah, but hell swimming home."

"You re up early."

Huh? He d slept in maybe two hours later than he had planned. He had even been feeling guilty about it. "This isn t early," he said around his toast. "Six is early. Gives you time to move around before the traffic sets in. So, what re you doing today, Misato?"

"You, Ryoga-kun, get to enroll in school."

Now that was not an option. "I don t have to go to school. Even Miss Hinako quit bugging me about it after a while."

"Hinako?"

"Do you really want to know?" Now there was a true pain. Good thing Ranma had to put up with her instead of him. Justice, really.

"Nah. Look, you never finished the ninth grade. Law says you ve got to go until you finish the ninth grade."

"Hey! I m seventeen! Do you know how stupid I m going to look with all of those kids?" As if he didn t end up looking stupid with people his own age. For bad ideas, this one was the worst."

Misato actually frowned. "Look, Ryoga-kun, I m not negotiating with you. You re going to school. You ll even be in Ayanami s class. Get her homework will you? She s not going to be in for a while."

This wasn t working well. "Hey, I don t have to be in for a while either, then. Special permission for robot pilots, right?"

"No, special permission for children with sucking chest wounds."

That perked him up. "Well, we could try that too."

"Look, it s in the Eva manual. Pilots have to have an education. Besides, what re you going to do anyway? You don t have plans."

"Damn! All right, but it s going to be all your fault, you know. I hope the school is insured." Ryoga, you ve got to learn to argue with women, gets you into trouble every time, oh the hell with it. "Let me pack my bag."

"If you even THINK of running off, I ll sic your father on you."

"Don t joke about things like that."

Well, Ryoga, look at the mess you ve gotten yourself into now! At least he had managed to stand up to wearing a uniform (helped greatly by the fact that they didn t come in his size.) But now he was at the door of classroom 2-B, in some middle school whose name he never caught, and the class was looking at him like he was an alien.

He hurried in, dumped his pack at an empty desk, and sat down. There was a computer on his desk. Good! Surprisingly enough, he could work a computer fairly well. It made for a good excuse to ignore everybody.

It couldn t, however, keep him from hearing them talk.

"Who do you suppose that is?"

"New student, has to be."

"Look at him! He s HUGE! No way he s in this class."

"Maybe he was held back a few years."

"Something else, maybe." That one from a kid a couple rows back, wearing glasses. He had that crazed look in his eyes, the little-  
warning-bells look.

"I WAS SICK FOR A LONG TIME GOT IT!" Ryoga couldn t stand listening to people gossip about him. That quieted everybody down for a second, and then they all changed the subject.

"So what happened yesterday?"

"Some kind of attack, probably. How s your sister, Touji?"

"Touji" was a tall kid, wearing a black jacket over his uniform. Non-  
conformist type. "She s in the hospital. It s pretty bad."

"But the radio said nobody got hurt!"

The kid with the glasses shrugged. "No way. You saw that building on the way here. Anything that can do that, it s got to hurt some people. Probably some died too." Ryoga didn t want to think about that one too hard.

"Stand! Bow!"

During the lesson (something about the Second Impact, and how it was a lot harder fifteen years ago, and didn t Misato tell him that it was all a cover story?), Ryoga got an earful of conversation from those two guys, a couple of rows behind him.

"So, Kensuke, who do you think he is?"

"Obviously new. Transfer student, but he doesn t have any school stuff in that bag of his."

"So?"

"Robot pilot, Touji. Jeez, you re really so hopeless." Eep!

"Not! No chance. Not a pilot. What the heck are you thinking, Kensuke?"

"Has to be. New student, the day after the attack? With everybody else leaving? And Ayanami s still absent too."

"Coincidence. Besides, if that was true, what s he doing here?"

"Maybe he s really fourteen. Superhuman Newtype pilot. Massive physical development. Specially regimented training programs."

"Quit frothing at the mouth, Kensuke. That s not proof."

"Than what about those metal things in his headband? What are those, huh? They have to be some kind of neural induction feedback device, to read the pilot s brainwaves." Oh damn! He had left them in there. "Sure isn t a fashion accessory, though." Well, thanks a lot, Kensuke.

Ryoga looked back down at his computer. He found the "Personal Mailbox" class option and checked it out, figuring he d have to reconfigure everything before it worked. To his surprise, there were a few messages waiting already. All from classmates. All with subject heading, "Are you the pilot?" or something equally dumb. He typed in a "Yes" blanket return mail to save time.

The class server started to whine under the mass of electronic traffic. Ryoga watched in horror as his box logged sixty messages from a class of twenty-five students in two minutes. Nobody was listening to the teacher anymore; not that he cared one way or another.

=How did they pick you?

"Darned if I know." Have to keep the language clean, Misato said. Not good to screw that up early on. After all, he was living at her place.

=What was it like?

"My first time, I don t really remember much."

=What s it called?

"Eva, Unit 01, stuff like that."

=What s it armed with?

"Huh?"

=You know, its weapons. (This one was from an Aida Kensuke. Figures.)

"Hey, that s a good idea! They ve got to have weapons for that thing somewhere."

=YOU MEAN THERE S NOT ANY WEAPONS!?

"First time, remember? Didn t have time to teach me anything."

Ryoga left the classroom. What now? If he tried to get home, he d get lost, of course, but he didn t much want to hang around here forever either.

Something brushed the back of his head, and he turned around. He saw Kensuke, said, "Hey! What s wrong with our teacher? Is he just stupid?"

"Yeah, well, I think so. You re really the pilot?"

"Well, yeah." Something else tapped him on the back of the head. He brushed his hair back.

"You know, Touji s really pissed at you. His little sister got hurt yesterday."

"Really? How?"

"Some Eva pilot stepped his robot into an emergency shelter."

A piece of broken wood flew by Ryoga s head, in concert with another one of those taps. He turned completely around to see Touji standing with the rest of the board and a stunned expression. "Hey, Touji."

Touji lifted the board in a threatening fashion. "Look, Ryoga, I know you re the new guy, but I ve got to beat the hell out of you anyway. Hey! Quit laughing at me! What s so funny?"

That was hilarious. Here s this guy, not a bit of battle aura, no training, doesn t even stand right, could break him in half without really trying, and... heheheheee. He couldn t stop laughing.

"Oh yeah? Take this!" Touji smashed the rest of the board into splinters on Ryoga s forehead. It didn t even sting.

"If that s how you like it..." And Ryoga smacked Touji once, in the shoulder so it wouldn t hit anything vital, not really hard. It was still enough to send Touji flying, hard enough to make him bounce twice. "Sorry about your sister. I really don t know what I m doing out there."

Touji staggered to his feet. "You don t know what you re doing out there?"

"There s not any echo caves around here." Probably. He d been to all of the best ones. Saying "Curse You Ranma!" really loud into one of those could really lift the spirits a bit.

"Well, I can t beat you up then."

Ryoga didn t really feel like fighting. It was pretty obvious that Touji wasn t any competition either. "Tell you what. You guys take me home, and I ll forget the whole thing."

Kensuke popped up in his face. "Not likely. You ve got to tell us all about the Eva robot."

"That s fair." Didn t Misato say something about "classified"? Not important. Besides, these guys were just kids.

"And why you carry around that umbrella."

They weren t getting that out of him, of course.

Kensuke and Touji were walking away from Ryoga s place.

"Wow! Can you believe it? She s a knockout!"

"How the hell does a moron like that rate a woman like that?"

"He s got the robot. He s got her. I m so envious."

"You d prefer the robot, Kensuke. Don t lie."

"Then I won t. Robots are cool."

"There you go then. You can have the robot. I ll just take her."

"No way sir. Wager they re a package deal, anyway."

"Huh?"

"She s a Captain. Bars on the jacket. Didn t you see them?"

"Wasn t where I was looking, Kensuke."

"Do your thinking with your brain, Touji."

"Yes! Sasuke, behold! Here I hold the most puissant of techniques!"

"Enough to crush that fool Saotome, Master?"

"Yes, easily enough. But too much power at too high cost doth make no meet bargain. I dare not use this technique. There is no merit in victory if it cannot allow me to enjoy the bounty of Akane and the pigtailed girl afterwards."

Sasuke mutters, "Learned something from the phoenix encounter, huh, Master. Will wonders never cease."

"What was that Sasuke?"

"Just wondering about your crease, Master. It s been a while since your best robe was pressed."

Looking from a nearby shadow, a dark face split into a grin as the two left the garden. "Power, brother dear? If it is truly enough to beat darling Ranma, it will be more than enough to beat that awful woman with the pigtail. And then Ranma will be mine alone! OH HOH HOH HOH HOH!"

End of part two

E-mail comments, flames, et cetera to akent 


	3. Chapter 3

"Ryoga-kun, are you ready?" Misato watched the Eva take a step forward into the target range. It was pretty impressive buildings, targets to Eva scale, the whole nine yards. Here the aspiring Eva pilot could sharpen his skills and prepare for the next attack, not to mention log valuable synchronization practice.

\"Well, I suppose so. How do I work it again?"/

Sigh. He doesn t know how to work a gun, remember? "Simple, Ryoga-kun. Use the handle to center the crosshair, the little cross on your screen, on your target. Then pull the trigger on the handle. Poof! Got that?"

\"Got it."/

Did he now? Well, at least he could synch well enough with Eva to avoid tripping this time. Amazing what a couple of weeks of practice could do. "Well, here goes." She pressed the switch to start the target drones.

Paradise Lost, Part 3 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All copyrights owned by Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax, respectively -  
Ryoga moved his hands to the control handles. Piloting the Eva was still completely alien to him, although he could get it to lope around after a fashion. Still, it d be a while before he was as agile inside as out.

And then there was this target practice stuff. Misato had been a little peeved when he told her Kensuke s idea, that he should have some kind of weapon, and told him that of course he d get weapons. After all, how can you beat an Angel without weapons? They d both laughed a bit over that one.

But this gun wasn t a proper weapon. An umbrella is a good weapon. Ropes make good weapons. Hell, anything can be used in an emergency, but the way this gun felt, it wouldn t work too well as a cudgel. And he d never even held a gun. Right now, he was holding it like he d seen in some American action movie posters, butt at the hip and arms extended. It deeply disturbed him that Misato had said that he was supposed to hold it that way. After all, the movies weren t real life.

A target popped up a few blocks ahead. It looked like somebody had made a gigantic inflatable balloon shaped like the Angel. He fiddled with the controls, got the crosshair over the center of the target (hey why did is it jerking like that?) and pulled the trigger. Instantly, dozens of high-velocity bullets streamed out of the gun and sent a vibration through the Eva. Their passage shattered false windows along their path. Reaching the target, they blew completely through the Angel mockup, showing that it was indeed nothing more than a big parade balloon with cosmetic adjustments.

Well, that was pretty easy. He could afford to have some fun with this, maybe. "Is that it, Misato-san?"

\"Well, basically, we ll put a few more up for you to practice on. Try shooting while moving the Eva, it ll take more concentration."/

Concentration, yes, but not attention. "Kind of boring."

\"That s the idea, Ryoga-kun. You need to be good enough at this so that it s nothing special. Besides, it s more important to get you used to moving around in the Eva. I ve noticed that you haven t tripped over the power cord yet."/

She couldn t know that he d had a little experience with wearing a leash and collar (or iron manacle and chain, but what was the difference, really?) and it wasn t particularly in his way. It d be a real problem if he had to do some serious moving, however. "Hey, what happens if I do break the power cord?"

\"Well, that depends. You ve got five minutes of power stored in the batteries on your Eva."/

Five minutes? That wasn t much. He said so.

\"Well, it s the best we can do at this point. Another thing; that s only if you re moving around. If you re generating an AT field, then it takes a lot more power. You ll have about sixty seconds in that case."/

"And after that?"

\"You run out of juice. Stop moving. Get the picture?"/

Well, that was reassuring. "I thought you said that the only way to fight an Angel was to generate an AT field to neutralize its field."

\"Well, when your Eva went berserk, that s what it did. We think that our progressive knife design can cut through a field at extremely close range, though."/

"Yeah, that s another thing. How come this knife is so small? I could use this thing without the Eva!"

\"Yeah, well, it s charged, so it would set your arms on fire from friction. And give you a vibration concussion. We ll work on a bigger one if you like."/

Well, at least it was only a backup. He didn t use bladed weapons anyway... that was Kuno s specialty. He missed his umbrella, though.

\"All right, Ryoga-kun, that s enough target practice for the day. Come on in. Let s call it a night and go in."

"Well, Kensuke? How s my hair look?"

"Ease off, Touji. She s not going to fall all over you or anything."

"Hey, this idea of yours is brilliant! We ll take him back and forth from school. That way, we see her twice every day! Sheer brilliance!"

"Yeah, I know, I thought of it, remember? Just be glad I decided to let you in on this."

"Oh, come on, it s not like you d have any chance at it."

"IT is not what I m looking for. I just want to know about the robots."

"Hey, we re here." Touji pressed the intercom s button. "Hibiki?"

The door opened. Inside, Misato looked at the two of them, still slightly bleary from the night before. She was wearing a tank top, shorts, and a funny cross pendant. She hadn t combed her hair.

"oh man, I m in love..."

"What? Aren t you two in Ryoga-kun s class?"

Kensuke elbowed Touji, then bowed. "He meant to say good morning, Katsuragi-san. I am Aida Kensuke, and the drooling one is named Suzuhara Touji." Return elbow. "We re here to take Hibiki to school."

Misato was having a bit of trouble following the conversation, aided by the freight trains moving cars full of operating jackhammers through her skull. "Huh?"

(Sheer eloquence in the morning. Man, Touji can have her.) "Well, seeing as he always gets lost, if he goes by himself, we thought we could take him straight there. He d actually get to see class once in a while."

She d finally caught on. "Hey, that s a pretty good idea. Thanks, guys. Ryoga-kun! Look who s here!"

Ryoga slipped past Misato on his way out the door. He was still wearing the same outfit (it had been washed, though) and the same headband with the same neural things tucked inside, and he still had the same backpack topped with the same stupid ornamental umbrella. Kensuke remembered when he and Touji had tried to run off with it. That thing weighed a ton! Actually it weighed one hundred and thirty-five pounds, and for its size, it had to be made mostly of depleted uranium. Kensuke remembered getting bored during physics class sometimes. How Ryoga carried the damn thing around was a total mystery.

"Morning, guys. We leaving?" Ryoga had seemed completely fine with the idea himself. Of course, Kensuke had neglected to mention the meet-  
with-Misato part to him.

"See you later, Katsuragi-san." Touji was still standing there starry-  
eyed.

"Later, Ryoga-kun, guys."

Ryoga started down the hallway. Touji just stood there, laughing to himself. "Did you hear that, Kensuke? She called us "guys!" We re almost there already and we haven t even done anything yet!"

"Idiot." Kensuke wasn t worried about that now. "Hey, Ryoga, wait up!"

"Yes, Gendo?"

Fuyutsuki was, of course, right there. Good thing too, Gendo certainly couldn t run NERV through his cell-phone, even if he had to at times. "Cancel all of my afternoon appointments."

"Any reason, sir?"

He smiled to himself. "I ll be otherwise occupied, I expect."

"Right."

"That fiend Saotome! He must have spirited away the scroll. There is no other explanation! Where is he, Sasuke?"

"Master, I haven t been able to find Mistress Kodachi either. Perhaps he has taken her off as well?"

"Ah, a fitting fate for the fool Saotome, to be afflicted with my twisted younger sister. But I cannot surrender to him the scroll... no amount of puissance of spirit would enable me to overcome its power. How cruel fate, to yield the instrument of justice into the hands of the very evil that it should have destroyed?"

"Let s just hope he doesn t use the scroll s technique."

"What! Oh, no! Doubtless the base varlet Saotome is even now preparing to use its terrible secret against me. Do you have the counter-  
technique, Sasuke?"

"No, Master, you instructed me to leave it in China, so that Saotome could not use it against you."

"Argh! The honorless dog Saotome would never balk at wielding my own weapon against me."

"Perhaps Mistress Kodachi will stop him, Master."

Kuno digested that thought for a minute. "Let us hope so, Sasuke. Far better for her to do so, than allow the wretched Saotome to obtain such overweening power."

"Hey, Akane! You want to take Kuno this morning, or should I?"

"Go ahead. It was my turn yesterday."

"Well, here goes..." Ranma reached the schoolyard first, jumping the fence. "Hey, where is he? He never misses a morning s workout."

"Wow, that was fast, even for you, Ranma."

"Chill out, Akane. He s not here."

"Huh?"

"Maybe he gave up."

"Not Kuno. You re not that lucky."

"Ah, Ryoga..." Kensuke really had to step to keep up with Ryoga. Longer legs, endurance stride, just plain faster than he was. And obviously not used to walking with other people. Ryoga could slow down a little bit; Misato s place wasn t going anywhere.

"Yeah?"

"Wait up. If you run off, you ll get lost." Not the kindest way to say it, but true anyway. How could one guy get lost so easily? On the way to school. On the way back from school. On the way to lunch. On the way to the water fountain. On the way to write on the chalkboard, for God s sake! "Besides, Misato s is THAT way."

"Oh. Okay, I ll slow down."

Touji was being quiet over there. He still had that dumb Misato idea in his head. Yeesh! Two days and he obviously hadn t had another thought in his head. Good think Hikaru hadn t caught on yet. She d be crushed. As if everybody else didn t know she liked Touji. Except Touji. Tell him? Nah, he would never believe it.

"Hey, Ryoga, what s Misato like, anyway?" Ah, he speaks.

"Um, well, she s nice, but a bit sloppy. And she drinks too much. And sleeps too late. And her cooking isn t very good either."

"Who cares about her cooking?"

"You don t have to eat it."

Kensuke stumbled a bit over one of the big launching tube platforms. There was one every few blocks, to let the Eva out wherever. He thought of the great footage he d snagged of the Eva fight. Camcorders are wonderful. Can t tell Touji, though, he s still down about his sister. "Hey, how was Eva today?"

"Damn it, Kensuke, I told you that they told me not to tell you anything else about it. I got in really big trouble over that."

"Just passing the time, sorry." Man, he could get defensive. Not very good at hiding secrets, though. He didn t know much about Eva. What kind of mecha pilot doesn t know mecha? "Hey, we re here. Should we walk you up?"

Ryoga closed the door behind him. Why did he ever open his big mouth? Ever since he talked about being a pilot, Kensuke had never shut up about Eva. He could live with it, had to. Kensuke was the closest thing he had to a friend at the school. Aside from that he was a decent sort. Still was different from Nerima.

And Touji. Couldn t keep his mind out of his pants. He hadn t said anything, wouldn t know how to put it, never really had to say that kind of thing before, but enough was enough. Besides, she was old enough to be Ryoga s mother. They d call it statutory rape. Not that Touji had any chance of all. But still.

Come to think of it, why was he still here? He could just hit the door. He still had his pack and shoes handy. Keep going, just like always, until you hit Nerima, and Akane, and everybody. See the world.

*[And then what? You gonna get beat up by Ranma? You gonna peep on Akane? Maybe blow up some poor person s driveway?]*

What the hell was that?! Not his conscience talking, he d have recognized it. Not telepathy, probably. Not the way two guys in a fight can be thinking the same thing. He listened for a bit, standing still, but there wasn t any more.

Whatever it was, it had a good point. Ryoga s life had been in a rut for the past few years, for sure. Wander off. Buy souvenirs for Akane. Find Nerima. Challenge Ranma. Lose to Ranma. Wander off. Send postcard to Akane. Find Nerima. Fight horrible monstrous threat/evil martial artist/natural catastrophe/Akane s cooking. Wander off. It was a full life, eventful, but what the heck could you do with it?

Of course, this might not be any better. Misato was good, easy on the eyes for certain, but utterly not his type. Too old, too. And there was something familiar about the hairstyle, something that didn t register on his consciousness but completely turned him off. Can t quite put a finger on it, though... And she couldn t really cook either. Everything was instant, which was fine by him, but she could barely heat it up right. Not "oh-my-aching-digestive-tract" Akane-style cooking, but not tasty either. He d taken up most of the cooking, in fact.

What about Dad? All right, buy his story that he just wandered off all those years ago. Easy enough, considering. What the hell was he doing running all of this, now? And why did Gendo need Ryoga, anyway? Obviously he wasn t the only robot pilot. He d gotten a peek at Ritsuko s clipboard a couple days ago and had seen something in English, like "Third" something or other. He wasn t too polished on his English, but he suspected that you didn t get "third" without "first" or "second". That meant Rei and somebody else. Where the hell were they?

Maybe he could call this training. Yeah, that would be it. Training to help him beat Ranma and win Akane. Yeah. He could walk Eva up to the Tendo dojo and squish Ranma like a bug. And his dad Genma too, while he was there. Then he d pick Akane up and they d run off together.

Right. They d eject his rear into the next time zone if he even THOUGHT of trying a stunt like that. Plus, it wasn t too manly to go squishing your rivals with big robots. Akane wouldn t be impressed. She d probably just start crying, or something... Ouch. Change the subject, Ryoga.

By this time, he d managed to settle in and start on his homework. It wasn t hard, really. He d just managed to lose the habit when he d left school a few years ago. Why do it? You d never get credit for it, you wouldn t be there when it was due. Except now he was there every day. And learning, too. He d have to treat Kensuke nicer. Talk to him about the gun practice yesterday, maybe. He d love that, although Misato wouldn t be too happy about it. Eva was secret, as much as you could keep a giant walking robot in downtown secret anyway.

He heard Misato coming in. "Hey, Ryoga. How was school?"

"Not bad." What did she do all day at NERV? She was "Operations Commander", and that had to be important, and even though she bossed Aoba and everybody, he d never seen her giving anybody but him an order. Maybe that s when she did the commanding.

"Come on, let s go to NERV. More practice."

Well, it was still training, even if he really couldn t use it like he was used to. "Sure, give me a second."

"Take the wheel, Ryoga?"

Ryoga was torn between the desire to cower in the passenger seat and the desire to actually try his hand at driving. It HAD to be better than Misato s crazy techniques. Swerving. Cutting people off. She d destroyed that one poor guy s shopping bag. Even he would hurt after a head-on collision at these speeds. Checking his safety harness, he tried to remember if praying had ever done anybody he knew any good, and how they had gone about it.

{PATTERN BLUE DETECTED}

"Well, you all know what that means. Is Misato here yet with Ryoga?"

"Yes, they re on the way down here, sempai."

"Hibiki-san?"

"Prepare Eva 01 for launch. Divert Ryoga to the hangar. Have Misato come here. Where is the best intercept site?"

Aoba played with his keyboard for a second. "We can engage just north of Tokyo-3 s urban areas. Not many people out there."

"Yes, but isn t Misato s apartment that way?"

"Can it, Ritsuko. Prepare the closest launch elevator. Evacuation status, Maya?"

"All blocks already in their shelters. They re getting good at it."

Ryoga settled into the warm LCL. It still gave him the willies to think about. Ritsuko had explained the whole thing to him, and he was as pig-  
proof as he was going to get, but he couldn t risk it right now. There was another Angel headed for the city.

\"Ryoga, you re going to intercept the Angel inside a commercial center just outside of Tokyo-3. Lots of buildings around, but plenty of ammo caches and such. Try to take it down with the gun."/

"Well, if you say so." Ryoga still didn t really trust the gun. It s not like they d ever shot an Angel with it, anyway. Of course, if he killed it with the gun, it wouldn t hit him at all. For some reason, it HURT when he got hit in the Eva. Much, much more than otherwise.

The Evangelion stepped loose of the launching rails, careful not to snag the power cord. The Angel would be around here somewhere... Of course. Large red arrows pointed behind him on his display. Straight toward the Angel. They turned with him to highlight it as he spun around.

That thing was really, really strange-looking. It was long, brown, looked like that gross Hanky thing from South Park. No arms, no legs, but two long tentacle things. The tentacles glowed pink. Pink?

It reared up, exposing two large eye-looking things on its front lobe. The tentacles writhed a little. Ryoga listened for a second, then grabbed the knob for the external microphone and twisted it up all the way. It was laughing! Not a funny laugh, not a sympathy laugh, not even a "ha I beat you up AGAIN Ryoga" laugh. This laugh was cold, it touched the spine, it was madness given sound. It was oddly familiar and THAT scared the hell out of him.

\"Okay, Ryoga, take it out. The AT fields are canceling each other out."/

Ryoga moved the crosshairs over the Angel s outline. Squeezed the trigger. Immediately, he felt the Eva rock as hundreds of pieces of screaming metal tore through the air. Was it working? He was hitting something, there was lots of smoke in the air. In fact, he couldn t see the thing at all through all the smoke.

\"No, Ryoga! Stop shooting! You re just hiding it!..."/

His fighting sense flashed. Too late, and his reaction time wasn t fast enough in this big metal hulk. One tentacle flashed out, didn t hit the dodging Eva, but blew his gun in half. It kept going, tore the top off of a nearby building. His gun was slagged. Great, now what? He jumped back again, and again, as the Angel sent the tentacles towards him. Those things were fast! Again, he heard that laughter.

This wasn t working. Obviously, he d have to hit the Angel somehow. He dropped the piece of gun. \"Ryoga, grab the gun next to you. Hurry!"/ He ignored the gun that slid out of the side of the next building, grabbed his knife from the Eva s shoulder. Time to see what this thing can do.

His first jump took the third story off of a parking garage, the second pulverized some hotel s penthouse suite. He held the knife in a reversed grip, aimed for the root of the left tentacle. Nothing could stop this attack, hundreds of tons of Eva falling from the sky.

"Wow! This is SO cool."

"Hey! Kensuke, how come he dropped the gun?"

"Obviously wasn t working, Touji. He s got the knife now."

"Hey, let me borrow the camera. I can t see from here."

"No chance. I want to get this on tape. Mom will love it!"

"He s jumping! What s that move?"

"Ah! A flying reversed slash attack! He s going to disable that purple energy whip."

"OH! That had to hurt."

"It just blew him into the air! That thing is so COOL!"

"Um, Kensuke?"

"Yeah, Touji? What an attack!"

"Isn t the Eva coming this way...?"

This was VERY bad. "Ryoga, pick up the gun! What are you doing out there?" He was jumping onto buildings, that s what he was doing. Nasty damage. Would the knife work?

\"OOOOOWWWWWWW damn that hurts!"/

God, but that was fast! The energy whips had crossed, taking the Eva in the chest twice, melting the blade on the knife, and now the Eva was flying. Misato couldn t tell how fast, but it wouldn t be good to be around when it hit.

"Brace for impact, Ryoga-kun!" That was Ritsuko. Good idea, he was a martial artist, he could always roll with the fall. "What the hell is he doing?"

Misato turned back to the command display. Ryoga had cocked the Eva s arms and legs, ninety degree angles, and what was that he was doing with its hands? "No, Ryoga, the sign of Satan won t work on this kind of Angel! Ryoga!"

The impact took out half an acre of what had been rather pretty mountainside. Ritsuko started typing quickly, totally intent on the readouts. "Damage reports, Ritsuko."

"Eva has a couple of burn marks on the chest armor. No impact damage." No way! Even if he hadn t been thrown half a mile, that crazy pose thing he had done meant he HAD to have busted something. "His knife is a loss. The power s been cut too, he s got maybe four and a half minutes left."

"Ryoga! Are you all right?" Misato was reeling. Things should either be much better or much worse than they were at the moment, right? It either worked or it didn t. But now it wasn t working. Except that it was still working, maybe. What was going on?

"Sempai, who are those two?"

"No idea. Civilians, probably."

Gendo steepled his hands. "Order the Eva back. We can sortie again once it has a new power connection."

Misato looked at the two children in the screen. They looked familiar... of course. They were Ryoga s class buddies, the techno dweeb and the horny one. What were they doing out there?

Ryoga saw Kensuke and Touji outside his Eva. The landing hadn t hurt, he d braced himself properly, but the people in his headphones had gone totally berserk at it. Hadn t they ever fallen off something before? It worked for suborbital Akane launching, and it worked for low-trajectory Eva launching, too.

He popped the emergency plug ejection switch. Not the big red one with all of the safety interlocks that would blow him through the mountain, but just enough to pop the hatch open. He turned on the external speakers. "Guys, get in!" The Angel was coming. And his alarm clock was about to go off, it looked like. Just perfect.

"What, you mean us?"

"YES, you Touji! Move your ass!"

The two clambered into the entry plug. He shut the hatch and re-  
established contact with Eva. Touji was coughing (not everybody handled LCL well, Ritsuko had said) and Kensuke was just staring at the plug. "Quiet, guys. Let me think for a second."

The laugh came again. Touji shuddered a little, said, "That sounded crazy. Insane, even."

"Yeah, can Angels go crazy? Totally insane-sounding."

"Shut up already!" Insane? Insane! THAT S what was so familiar about this laugh. And the attacks... the cross-cutting chest throw was a basic move of Anything Goes Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics. He should have seen it coming, damn it! So the Angel used ribbon-style attacks. How could you beat ribbon-style attacks? Where was he going to get an Eva-  
size ribbon, in the next two minutes for that matter?

Wait a minute. Ranma had seen the weakness right away, hadn t he? It hadn t been important, he d been trying to learn the technique, not beat it, but...

"Ryoga! What are you doing? Withdraw! We can fight it later!" He wasn t listening. He was yelling some kind of battle cry and running right at the Angel. "Ritsuko! Is it berserk again?"

"No! That s Ryoga doing it."

"Ryoga! Stop it!" The Angel s tentacles lashed out, striking Eva s arms... and not stopping it. The Eva plowed into the Angel s main body. It started striking the Eva s back, but the Eva had grabbed its body with one arm, and through the screaming coming over the radio you could hear the THUNK-THUNK-THUNK of the Eva s hand hitting the core, over and over...

The core cracked. The Angel was still laughing, that shrill laugh. What were these things, so utterly inhuman? The Eva s fist broke the shell of the core, went completely through. Immediately the tentacles stopped, went limp, and the Angel fell on top of the Eva. Total power left: three seconds.

"Did he kill it?"

"Yeah, looks like it, Maya."

Aoba chimed in from the front terminal. "Target has gone completely silent. No pattern."

"Recover the pilot and Evangelion. Notify the repair and cleanup bureaus, and keep the press out of it. I ll be in my office."

"Gendo, wait! That s the wrong elevator..."

With Gendo and Fuyutsuki gone, the mood relaxed a bit. "How d he win, Ritsuko? I thought he was dead."

"I don t know. Maybe he saw something. Maybe it really was the Eva. Maybe I ll wake up a few minutes from now. That whole ceiling tile joke wasn t funny, Misato."

"Damn it, Ritsuko, I showed you the handprint!" Not this again.

"I still can t believe you went to so much trouble for a joke. It s not like you, Misato..."

"Well, are we in trouble?"

"Not really, Touji. Stern lectures I m used to. I don t think it ll be any worse."

"So, Kensuke, did you get it on tape?"

"Every minute. I ll have to do something with the audio though. He just sat there screaming! Can you imagine how much that must have hurt?"

"You re the one who wants to pilot the thing."

"Well, I still do. It wouldn t have hurt like that if he d just shot the thing with a bigger gun."

"You think Misato will be pissed?"

Kensuke grinned to himself. "Yes, definitely. She s going to bawl you out but good, next time she sees you."

"No! I can t believe I let you drag me out there! If this ruins my chances with her, I ll kill you, Kensuke! You hear that?"

"What chances? She s twice your age."

"You ll pay for that, Kensuke. Hey, get back here!"

Ryoga was sitting in what everybody called the "debriefing room". This time, nobody was telling him what a good pilot he was. Ironic, really. You screw up completely and win, and you get praised. You figure something out and win, they yell at you for disobeying orders. "Look, Misato, what are you so mad about? I won."

She was still really angry. He kept expecting her to pull out one of those thrice-damned hammers women always seemed to have handy. "Yes, but you could have been killed! Are you crazy, attacking like that?"

Ryoga looked up. "No, I just remembered. That looked just like a martial art I used to practice sometimes. A friend of mine figured out that you could beat it, easy, if you just attacked with your bare hands all out and forward. It s designed to deflect weapons and use them to beat you, and it can t stop a charge."

"And just WHAT made you assume that you were right? Just because some ninny somewhere came up with a dumb martial art, you have to jump to the conclusion that the most horrible enemy of all Mankind has to use it too? Who s this friend you keep referring to?"

Blush time. "You know, the one with the fianc e. I don t know what made me think that. Something was really familiar. And it worked, right! Hell! Worked better than the damned gun, anyway."

For some reason, she hadn t taken the bait. She was still thinking about the fianc e thing, probably. She wasn t that mad anymore, really. "Well, sure it worked, but next time could you TELL EVERYBODY before you do something stupid like that? You nearly gave us all a heart attack. Are you OK?"

Whatever he said, he d have to remember it. "Yeah, mostly. Nothing bleeding, nothing broken, anyway. Can we go?"

"Yeah, let s go." She opened the door to the hallway. "Hey, Ryoga. What was that thing you were doing when you were flying? It looks really, really stupid, you know."

"Ritsuko yelled something about bracing, I figured out that I wasn t walking right because the ground was too far down, and I braced for impact."

"And that s bracing for impact."

"Works every time."

"Sheesh."

Kensuke loved to camp out... nothing like the stars at night. He could forget school, forget home, forget the world. He could remember the guns, and the military, and dream of glory to be won in a cockpit. He could find out what was moving around out there.

"Can you tell me the way to Furinkan High School?"

"Ryoga! What are you doing here?" That was Ryoga, all right. Pack, headband (still with neural stuff inside) and all. "Didn t you run away because Misato yelled at you?"

"Nah, I just went out for a snack. How long has it been, a week? I ll make it back in three days more for sure."

That was funny. "Tell you what. I ll take you back in the morning. There s room in the tent."

"Sure, I can do that. Hey! Is that camp rice? I love camp rice?"

"Go ahead. Have some. What s that Furinkan place anyhow? You re in my class, not in high school."

"Reference point. I can find my way around Nerima, a little, if I can get to it. Furinkan s right in the middle of it."

"We ve got to get you a map, Ryoga."

"I ve got one, it doesn t do any good."

"Compass?" Maps always did good.

"Yeah, but they always just spin around some. Don t work for me."

"And they gave you an Eva."

"I ve wondered about that."

End of Paradise Lost, Part 3 Send e-mail, flames, et cetera to akent Rei fans rejoice! She ll be healthy again for the next part. 


	4. Chapter 4

Misato herded the two children into Gendo s office. As usual, the place gave her the creeps. The symbology on the ceiling and floor of the room was odd, unfamiliar, and utterly alien to the man who sat behind the desk. As usual, he had on his suit, and he steepled his white-gloved hands on seeing their entry.

It was pretty obvious why Gendo wanted to see Ryoga. For almost a week, they had been looking for him. How could he run off like that? What if one of the Angels had shown up? What did he have to be unhappy about anyway? Ritsuko said something about neural feedback and unfamiliar stimulus, but it really didn't make any sense.

Why, then, was Rei in the room? She was on her feet now, no bandages, and presumably healthy. The doctors had recommended her return to duty only two days earlier. As usual, her expression was totally neutral. Perhaps Gendo just wanted her to see the coming rant? Not really; if Gendo was protective of anything in the world, it was Rei.

"Come in, Captain Katsuragi, Ryoga, Rei."

Ryoga had on a standard "I ve been bad" face, looking at the sigils on the floor, shuffling his feet. Misato did feel a bit sorry for him. Right after he had been brought in by that Kensuke fellow, she d have to be nicer to him after all, he had spent the entire night getting bawled out by one NERV staffer after another. Not the most fun way to spend the day. Now, he was going to get the re-runs, with the added benefit of delivery by a father she knew he wasn t comfortable with. (And hadn t they hated each other only a few days before they had met? She was certain of it.)

"Ryoga..."

"Yes, Dad?"

Gendo s eyes narrowed. "Why did you leave without somebody with you? You KNOW that wasn t a good idea." Huh? That didn t sound like Gendo.

"I was just getting some snacks from the corner store..."

"And why did you take that pack along?"

"I always take my pack along."

"And why is that, Ryoga?"

Ryoga paused for a second. "Well, it s because I always get lost... oh."

"Yes, oh indeed. What would have happened if an Angel had attacked while you were out wandering somewhere? Do you have any idea how many people could have died?" Gendo still wasn t really angry. What the heck was going on?

"Sorry, Dad."

"Well, it s not your fault." THAT was something that Misato had never expected to hear Gendo say to anybody. "You ve got your parents sense of direction. But we still can t afford to not be able to find you, you see?"

"I promise I won t get lost again."

"Yeah, right." Ryoga turned and looked at Misato. "Can you really not get lost? Come on. You couldn t find the door of this room in one try, Ryoga." He dropped his head again.

"Well, do you have any ideas, Captain?"

"Well, Hibiki-san, I d just put a leash on him and be done with it." Ryoga s head snapped back up. "Just joking, Ryoga." For a second, he had had murder in his eyes... but it was gone now. Did he not like leashes or something?

"Good idea, Captain, but not in the way that you expect."

"Huh?" Nobody understood that comment, it seemed.

"Rei?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Now that you re well again, I m assigning you to keep an eye on Ryoga. You re in the same class at school. Make sure he gets there and back. If he goes anywhere outside Captain Katsuragi s apartment, you re to be with him. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

Ryoga was taking this whole thing pretty well. Misato knew she d be furious if she d been assigned a keeper. "Does that mean I can go places now?"

Gendo looked at Ryoga. That COULDN T be a smile on his face. No, no smile now, Misato was definitely seeing things. "Yes, son, you can go out, provided Rei is with you. Only when Rei is with you. Got that?"

"Understood, Dad." How could he be so happy at this? Surely... no, that thought was pretty disgusting.

"You may go now, Captain, Ryoga. And, Ryoga..."

"Yes, Dad?"

"You keep an eye out for Rei as well. If she gets hurt, I ll make you wish that I d never found your mother." There, Gendo s back to normal already.

Ryoga swallowed. "Yes, Dad."

Paradise Lost, part 4 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters owned by Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax, respectively.

"Rei?" She hadn t left with the others. Of course, Gendo hadn t told her to leave with the others.

"Yes, sir?"

Gendo relaxed. With only Rei around, he didn t have to keep up much of a front. "Do you realize what you just agreed to, and why I asked it?"

"Not really." Ah, honest as ever.

"Here s the short explanation. My son gets lost as easily as I do. But we need him around, or at least we have to be able to find him quickly, in case of an Angel attack. Right?"

Rei nodded.

"Well, then, we need to keep an eye on him. We don t have too many people available for that, and they couldn t go everywhere with him, not inside class like you can. Understand?"

Rei nodded again.

"And we can t just lock him up somewhere. He s been wandering for years, Misato tells me. He d really get depressed if he couldn t get out every so often." Gendo knew that one first-hand. "So, you can follow him around. Make sure that he doesn t get too lost, get him home in the evenings."

Rei nodded again.

Gendo opened a desk drawer. "You need to have these things at all times, then." He pitched a leather case with a NERV logo at Rei, and she snatched it out of the air. Never blinked. "That s a pocket cellular phone. I have the number, so does Fuyutsuki. If we need you, we ll call you. Keep it charged up." Another leather-cased and NERV-  
stamped item. "This one s a global positioning system. When we call you, you have to tell us exactly where you are, and we ll send a helicopter for you."

Rei tucked the two items into her vest pockets.

"Here s the last thing." Gendo reached down and withdrew a leather shoulder holster from his desk. He placed a pistol beside it, and two spare clips for that pistol. Another box of ammunition followed. "Do you know what this is, Rei?"

"It s a gun." Hey, that looked suspiciously like an expression. Surprise? Well, her eyes were wide open.

"It s a Heckler and Koch USP nine millimeter pistol. Very reliable. You re to carry this, and two loaded clips of ammunition, at all times as well. The box of ammunition you can keep at home."

"Why?" She didn t ask questions, most of the time. That she did now meant that the thought puzzled her.

Gendo leaned back a bit in his chair. "Misato tells me that Ryoga often travels into Nerima. He might even have a girlfriend there." Could Gendo believe that? He hoped so. Ryoga had never been good at socializing as a little boy. "I ve been to Nerima before. It is quite possibly the most dangerous place in Japan, excepting wherever an Angel is at the moment. Do you understand?"

"No."

Of course she didn t understand. She d never wandered into Nerima. It really wasn t like the rest of the city. She might need that gun. "You ll carry it anyway. Don t use it unless you or Ryoga is threatened." He thought about the handprint he had seen in the catwalk. "Come to think of it, don t worry about Ryoga. He can probably take care of himself."

"Yes, sir."

"That will be all, Rei. Take care."

As she left, Gendo swiveled his chair around and looked at the view of the Geofront. Was this really such a good idea? Obviously Ryoga could take care of himself, if he d survived Nerima. But Rei? They d eat her alive down there. Ryoga had BETTER take care of Gendo s little girl.

Misato was still looking at Ryoga funny. It wasn t a good feeling, especially because she was driving him and Rei home, and he got the sinking feeling that it wasn t affecting her driving at all. He checked his restraints again.

"I still can t believe he actually bought that snack story. That s a bit much, even for him to swallow. Do you know how lucky you are, Ryoga-kun?"

Yeah, lucky. He d only been trying to get some edible food. Misato had botched the instant curry (again) and not even a stomach able to withstand Akane s culinary disasters could handle the fried mess. Of course he had never found the corner store... or the apartment... or Tokyo-  
3, for that matter. Good thing that Kensuke liked to camp out. That really had been lucky.

Ryoga looked back at Rei. Another bit of luck, thoughtfully provided by his maybe-not-so-no-good father. Now he could get out and see everybody. Akane must be worried sick, with no Ryoga or P-chan around for weeks.

Hey, come to think of it, he hadn t turned into P-chan for quite some time. Even more good luck, he supposed. "Hey, Rei, do you have any plans for today?"

"No."

Well, that was abrupt. "Do you mind tagging along with me for the afternoon, then? I d like to visit a friend."

Misato giggled a little. "Hear that, Rei? He says, a friend . You know what that means, right?"

Ryoga felt himself blushing. "Hey, cut that out Misato!"

Rei responded, "No, I don t know what that means." She still had that puzzled look on her face.

"Well, you see, Rei, there s a girl that Ryoga..."

"Hey look out for that car!" After a bit of reckless swerving, Misato finally returned to the correct side of the road. Ryoga had never thought he d be so glad to have to narrowly avoid being killed in a car wreck, before. "Watch where you re going!"

Misato stuck her tongue out at Ryoga. "Backseat driver."

"That s because YOU VE got an airbag and we don t." Rei was being quiet. Hadn t she noticed that truck? It must have had fifteen axles. Heck, Ryoga wouldn t have survived getting hit by that thing.

After a quick breakfast, Ryoga and Rei set off for Nerima. Fortunately for Ryoga s nonexistent finances, it was close enough (and far enough from the train stations) that it was just as easy to walk there. Ryoga had turned down Misato s invitation for a ride. Sure, it was against his father s rules, but he LIKED some people in Nerima.

"Hibiki-kun, why do you get lost?"

Miracle of miracles, she spoke. He looked up. Of course, she was leading the way, as he had only the vaguest idea where Nerima actually was. "I don t know. It s been going on all my life. I just never seem to get where I m going, that s all."

"Why not use a map?"

He d wondered that himself. "For some reason, it doesn t do any good. Takes me twice as long to find something with a map as without. Four times if I m using a compass too." Usually, if he had to get somewhere fast, he d just get Ranma or somebody to take him there. Just like he was doing now. Sigh.

"Why didn t that plate kill you?"

He d already done this once, recently, hadn t he? Maybe the tough guy approach would be effective. "Hey, you ought to see what I m used to getting hit by. That plate was nothing." She did something that could have been a single giggle or could have been a hiccup. He wasn t betting on the latter. So he d have to tell the truth. "I just don t hurt much, that s all. Lots of training."

"Why do you have an umbrella? It s a sunny day."

Yeah, like he was going to up and tell her about his curse. "You never know. Besides, usually I m lost. I d never find where I left it if I didn t always carry it." Hey, that made some sense. Was she nodding to herself?

Rei looked around. The directions she d managed to get from a laughing Misato (what was with her? "Just ask Ryoga." That wouldn t work.) led her here. It looked like a fairly normal suburb of Tokyo-3, streets, some drainage ditches, a few businesses.

At the same time, it looked like those pictures of Sarajevo that she had seen in history class. Lots of concrete damage, holes blown in the street, holes blown in walls, rubble here and there. A few houses were without power, as here and there power lines were down. She saw some sort of dust cloud in the distance, led by a tiny dancing mote. No cars moved down the street.

Ryoga moved forward. "Okay, now I know where I am. This way." Not likely. If Gendo-san had been telling the truth to her, and he didn t always, then Ryoga had no idea about how to get where he was going.

"Where are you trying to go, Hibiki-kun?"

"Oh, I usually just wander around for a while. Then I bump into somebody and follow them around for a bit. Usually I end up at the Tendo dojo."

"What s the address?" With that, they could just go straight there. She was already a bit tired. Ryoga tended to walk quickly, almost running, and he never stopped or slowed down. It was good exercise, really.

Ryoga stopped for a second. Then he set his pack down, started rummaging through the top pouch. He came up with a battered address book. It opened to a well-dog-eared page with a single address listed there, one Tendo dojo. "That good enough?"

Well, no, it wasn t. She also needed a local map to tell her where that address was. "Do you have a map?"

"I can t use maps, remember?"

Yes, but that didn t mean he didn t have a map. "Well?"

"No, I don t have a map." He shrugged his pack on again, careful to make sure the umbrella stayed on top. "We could find one."

That made a little sense. If they kept going, they d find a store somewhere that would sell maps. Of course, she couldn t afford a map; Gendo had neglected to give her a wallet or money. It figured. She had to carry around all of those things that were doing her no good, and didn t have those things that she could really use. Maybe the world really did work like that.

"Hey, I ve got a better idea. You hungry?"

She was, but what did that matter? "Yes."

"Well, there s Ucchan s. She ll have something to eat."

"Will she have a map?" That was more important right now.

"No, but she knows the way to the dojo. She can tell you."

Finally, something constructive. "Okay."

Ukyou looked up. It was a little late for breakfast and a little early for lunch, but she still had the grill hot. Two customers were always welcome.

Then she got a good look at them. THIS customer was always welcome. "Hey, Ryoga! Where did you wander off to this time? Nobody s seen you for a month?" Who was that girl with him? Odd. Blue hair, red eyes, NOT a martial artist. Young, too. And packing, but that didn t make any sense, Ryoga wasn t going to rob her.

"Yeah, well, you wouldn t believe me if I told you, Ukyou. You have anything ready?""

Of course she didn t have anything ready, she always cooked fresh, but she couldn t blame Ryoga for not knowing that. He wasn t much of a cook. "Let s see some money first, sugar."

"Can t I put it on the tab?"

Ryoga had no source of income at all. How did he manage to keep all of that muscle off of what he ate? "Well, this once, all right. You haven t introduced your friend." She grabbed some batter and a small spatula and started frying.

"Oh, yeah, right. Ukyou Kuonji, meet Rei Ayanami. Rei, this is Ukyou, a friend of mine."

"Pleased to meet you." Had that girl blinked yet? She decided to really do some over-the-top work on her order. That d impress her. "So, what s been going on, Ryoga?"

Now why did he look embarrassed? Poor Ryoga was so pathetically easy to read. "Nothing really... how s everything been?"

"You ve been out of town, then? Didn t you hear?"

"No, of course I was out of town. Hear what?"

Ukyou stopped for a second. "They found Kodachi a few days ago."

"Kodachi Kuno?"

"Yes. Somebody killed her." That pulled Ryoga up a bit. That look, though... haunted, really. "She was found in an alley somewhere. Whatever hit her, it was hard enough to blow her heart out through her spine."

The Ayanami girl spoke up. "No meat on mine, please."

"No problem. Anyway, they didn t find anything that might be a clue. Lots of ki energy, though. You sure you were out of town?"

Ryoga swallowed. "Did it happen eight days ago?"

Ukyou flipped one finished order of okonomiyaki onto a plate and started in on the second. "Yeah. How d you know?" He was white as a sheet. Really shocked. What for? Nobody had cared for Kodachi, not even her idiot brother, and Ukyou hadn t gotten around to telling him... "Oh my god. You didn t."

"No! I wasn t here." He was almost hysterical by this point. "Heh. I ve got the best alibi in town. Right, Rei?"

"Yes, the Angel attack was eight days ago."

What did that matter? Nice fireworks, the robot won, and everybody went home. Come to think of it, Kodachi hadn t been watching with everybody. Ukyou remembered watching from a roof with Ranchan, and (unfortunately) Akane, and Shampoo, and Mousse, and Cologne, and Genma, and everybody else in town who could jump up on a roof without help. Except Kodachi. That was what was so puzzling... everybody who could throw a ki blast like that was accounted for. Except Ryoga, and now he was saying he wasn t there, with some girl Ukyou had never seed before backing him up, and he was acting like maybe he really DID do it. "You have something to tell me, sugar?"

"No, I don t. I m not allowed to, anyway." They d both managed a pretty good part of their food already. Ryoga ate like he hadn t had a good meal in a month (which was likely, and why this one was on the house), and the girl just sat and ate hers quietly.

"Well, look, this is the bad part. Akane found the body." She saw his eyes go dead. Definitely a bad idea to tell him this now, but if he found out later that she knew and hadn t told him... repairs were expensive, and he was better that her at fighting. "She s still pretty shook up over the whole thing." Telling him this part would hurt. THINKING this part would hurt. "Ranma s taking care of her right now." Ryoga was starting to glow, just a little bit, but Ukyou knew just how bad he could get when depressed. "Don t worry, she ll be fine, it was just a lot of blood, that s all."

He finished off the last of his okonomiyaki. "Oh, god. Ranma s taking care of her? You sure? Thank god." Huh? "Oh, man, I ve got to get over there. Rei, you done eating?" At least he wasn t glowing any more; she wouldn t have to use her emergency pitcher of ice water after all.

"Yes."

"Well, then, could you tell her how to get to the dojo, Ukyou? She s doing the navigating today." No kidding. "Thanks for the lunch."

Ukyou watched the two leave. What in hell was up with Ryoga? Normally the thought of Ranma and Akane together was enough to make him break down a wall. Today, he hadn t even broken his chopsticks. And was he really involved in the murder somehow? Not that anybody here would talk; everybody had slept a little better the last few nights knowing they d never hear that laugh again. It just wasn t human.

Hey, what was Ryoga doing calling that girl by her first name? Not even "Rei-san", but just "Rei." She could have understood "Rei-chan", especially considering their size difference, but just plain old "Rei"? Ryoga wasn t any good to her if he couldn t win Akane over from Ranma. Was he?

Ryoga followed Rei. She was going down some side streets, familiar but not enough for him to navigate by. They were definitely headed toward the Tendo dojo, though.

Kodachi was dead. Well, that explained a lot. Ryoga hadn t believed, not really, that the Angels were all well-versed in Anything Goes Rhythmic Gymnastics anyway. Of course, how Kodachi had managed to turn herself into one of those... things... hey, was there a Spring of Drowned Angel? It would make perfect sense.

No, wait. Ritsuko was spending all her time looking at the body of the last Angel. If it was there, then they wouldn t have found Kodachi s body here. Probably not, anyway. He didn t know anybody with a Jusenkyo curse that had died like that. Then what was going on?

It had to be her. That laugh was unmistakable. He didn t feel sorry for her death, even if he had done it somehow. Her fault for turning into a giant Angel and trying to destroy mankind, right? But that s not how it had worked. He thought of asking advice from Baasan. No, bad idea, if she knew it was possible to do that, she would, and he didn t want to fight HER as an Angel. If that worked. Huh?

"We re here, Hibiki-kun."

Ryoga looked up at the familiar dojo sign. It showed a few scorch marks, a few scuffs, and a big ding on the bottom (he had really meant to hit Ranma that time), but it was definitely the right sign. He knocked on the door knocker.

"Oh, coming." That had to be Kasumi. Wonderful person, too good to have to be living with the rest of these people. Great cook, too. If she wasn t totally not his type... "Why, hello, Ryoga. Come on in, lunch is ready. Who s your friend?"

Ryoga performed the obligatory introduction. Rei still hadn t so much as blinked, that he had seen. Don t her eyes dry out after a while? "Is Akane in?"

"Yes, she s at the table, with Ranma, Gendo, Father, and Nabiki. Did you hear what happened?"

"Ukyou told me. How bad is she?"

Kasumi looked at Ryoga. "She s going to be all right. Ranma s been looking after her. It must have been a horrible shock, though." That was her "I just cleaned up so don t seek revenge right now Ryoga" look, slightly modified into a "don t let your petty feud disturb Akane right now Ryoga" look. How much did Kasumi know? About his curse, probably not. Everything else, for sure.

They went into the dining room, and Ryoga introduced Rei to everybody. They sat down, Ryoga across from Ranma and Rei across from Akane. She looked normal, if still a little pale. Well, it had been over a week.

Ranma paused in shoveling food down his throat. "Hey, Ryoga. Try some of this stuff, it s really good." Ryoga got a closer look. That was food? Oh, Akane cooked it. No wonder she was smiling at Ranma like that. In fact, now Ryoga could see Ranma s death grip on his chopsticks. Well, if he was going that far to make her happy, the least Ryoga could do was help him.

"Yeah, that looks good. Would you please pass me a bowl, Kasumi?" He heaped it full of... rice, probably, and passed the dish on to Rei, along with his best "don t eat this on pain of your life" look. She set it down and sipped her tea. Hey! It had worked. Well, crunch time... |crunch crunch| hey, he didn t mean it literally. Oh well, anything this bad had to be chock full of nutrition, right? "It is pretty good."

Akane beamed. "Thanks, guys. It s one of Mom s recipes."

After a (blessedly quick) lunch, Ryoga motioned to Ranma. "Hey, could we talk?"

"Sure, go ahead."

He had to be teasing. "Not here! Alone."

"Fine, on the roof all right?"

"Sure, let s go."

Now how was Rei supposed to keep an eye on Ryoga if he did things like that? She hoped she had read his look right, and that dish looked like it could kill somebody. She was full of okonomiyaki anyway. Good, that. Well, if the mountain will not come to Mohammed...

"Uh, Rei, could you wait down there for a second? I won t run off anywhere." She could jump on the roof too? That was surprising; she didn t do any martial arts.

"Yes." She hopped back down.

Ranma chuckled. "New girlfriend, Ryoga? Talk about cradle robbing."

Hey! That wasn t funny. "Hey! That s not funny!"

"Well," chuckle, "what did you want to talk about?"

Ranma wasn t fooling anybody. "Come on, spit it out." Ewwww! That s NOT what he had meant. Appropriate, but... "Okay now? What happened?"

Ranma wiped his mouth on one of Ryoga s spare bandanas. "You heard the story yet?"

"Yeah, Ukyou filled me in."

"Well, she took it kind of hard." Ranma sat down, crossed his legs. "The first day, she wouldn t eat, wouldn t talk. The next day, she went into the kitchen, spent four hours in there. I won t tell you what it tasted like."

"But you ate it all, didn t you?"

"Of course I ate it all, stupid. Almost killed me."

Well, Ranma wasn t stupid. Ryoga couldn t see Akane not being overjoyed at people eating her cooking. It had worked downstairs, anyway. "She all right now?"

"Yeah, I figure after tomorrow I can stop eating the stuff. She cries every so often, though, I don t know how to handle that, really."

"Thanks for taking care of her. Really. YOU all right now?" At least he d done the right thing by Akane, even if it did put him between Ryoga and Akane. She s more important anyway.

"Heh. I ve been getting Ukyou to sneak me actual food. She s great, really, it s kept me alive this week."

"Don t even think about it, Ranma." To insult Akane that way!

"What? No, no, that s not what I meant. I m taken." That hurt. "Well, mostly. But it s hard, you know? She s such a great person. Not like Shampoo; I don t feel bad not liking Shampoo. Or Kodachi." That killed the conversation.

"Yeah, well, it s all right. You wouldn t believe what I ve been up to."

"Does it happen to involve that blue-haired girl peeking over the rain gutter?"

Ryoga spun around. There she was. "Rei! I told you I m not going anywhere. I ll be right down." Sheesh. It s not like the dojo took enough damage without somebody hanging off the edge of the roof all of the time. "Yeah, she s a part of it."

"You giving up? No offense, man, but it s been a while since you ve been around."

What? No. "Not like that. I ve got a new place now. Heck, with Rei there, I ll even get back there tonight. Met a few new people. I m in school again."

"No kidding? I thought you quit in the ninth grade."

"Turns out you ve got to finish the ninth grade before quitting."

"So you re in the ninth grade, now?"

"Yep."

Ranma assumed an imperious pose. "Then I insist you refer to me as Saotome-sempai."

They both had a good laugh over that one. "You know, Ranma, I met my dad."

"That jerk? Did you beat him up? Tell me all the gory details."

"Turns out he just wandered off. He had the wrong idea, thought Mom and I ran out on him."

"I ll believe it of your family."

"Hey! Anyway, he s an important guy now. Has me working for him and everything."

"Cool. Where s your mom?"

"He doesn t know either. That s funny, too, because he always used to be able to find her. Where s yours?"

"Not funny, Ryoga. I haven t seen her in... god, I don t even remember her. And I can t go looking. Between that dumb curse and my dumb dad, she d probably kill me."

Ryoga already knew that story. "Well, I hope not. I m supposed to kill you, remember?"

"Yeah, in your dreams, P-chan. Hey, does that girl know about your curse?"

"Nope. I ve been lucky the past few weeks. Why?"

"Well, if you don t want her finding out the hard way, we d better get inside. It s about to rain."

"Yeah, she d get the wrong idea about you, probably."

"I swear, if you even SAY the L-word..."

Akane looked at the door. All three of them were coming in, Ryoga and Ranma laughing and punching each other s shoulders, that Ayanami girl following them. She was really, really quiet. Oh well, at least Ryoga wasn t swearing vengeance on Ranma again. He could really be a nice guy when he tried.

"So, want to spar, Ranma? It s been a while."

"Sure, Ryoga, let s go to the dojo. I could use a light workout."

"You..."

Akane went over to Rei. "You want to try it?" She didn t look like a martial artist, but then again, neither did Akane. And she had jumped up on the roof. "I m out of practice lately, myself."

"Try what?"

"You know, fighting. Martial arts. Kenpo."

"I don t know how."

Even better. "Well, if you re going to visit here, you need to learn. Come on."

Ranma and Ryoga watched the two spar. Their own fight had lasted only thirty seconds or so, as they weren t really mad at each other and didn t want to break anything. It was a draw (how could you KO Ryoga in thirty seconds?) but they weren t trying to prove anything.

Ranma noticed that Rei picked up on the moves pretty quickly. "Hey, you sure she s never done this before?"

"Well, no, but I don t know her THAT well. She just got out of the hospital." Ryoga looked troubled.

"Fighting injuries? Tofu s still the best for those."

"Well, no. It was an accident at work. She does the same thing I do."

"That is?"

"I told you that I can t tell you. Some stupid rule."

"Well, never mind then. Wouldn t want Ryoga breaking any stupid rules."

"You d never believe it anyway."

Now Akane was setting up a cinder block. She was genuinely happy to be showing somebody how to fight in the Anything Goes style. "Don t worry about Akane, Ryoga. She s going to be all right, really. It s not like we liked Kodachi." That shouldn t have drawn that kind of reaction. Ryoga was getting defensive, like he did whenever you called him P-  
chan. "Hey, do you know anything about that?"

"I m not sure. I did have something to do with it."

Say what? "What?"

"I can t tell you what. Work rules."

What, was he an assassin now or something? Have umbrella, will travel? "Be careful with that kind of thing. It s not honorable to kill them when you re done. What did she do, poison Rei or something?" Akane had broken her brick and was setting up another for Rei.

"It wasn t like that! I didn t know she was dead until today."

"With an injury like that, how could you not know?"

"Hey, Ranma, remember the Angel attack last week?"

"Yeah, happened at the same time as the murder. What about it?"

"Anything familiar about that thing?"

"I don t know... it wasn t that close to here. Looked cool."

"Well, never mind then."

"Owwww!"

Ranma looked over at Rei. She d broken her brick... and her hand, it looked like. "Hey, Ryoga, we d better get her to Tofu s office. Hope he s in."

"He s always in. Let s go, Rei."

"Oh, I m sorry, Ayanami! I didn t realize it d hurt like that!"

Of course, it always hurt the first time you broke a brick. "Akane, you dummy."

"Ranmaaaaa..."

Tofu shut the door to his office. He sat down, poured himself some tea. Got up again, broke into the medicine cabinet, added some vodka to the tea. He had never seen anything like the blue-haired girl that Ranma and Ryoga had just brought in. Sure, the hand was sprained, standard "you didn t tape your hand before breaking the brick dummy" damage, but the girl herself was really strange. None of the pain-blocking pressure points worked on her. Not that she d complained, even once, but he could tell that it was really hurting her.

He d never seen red irises, either. Not anything when put next to the local crew, Jusenkyo curses and all... but combined with the other thing, it was the strangest thing. He heard them leaving as he wheeled his chair to the book shelf. Finding out about this would be a real challenge. Something to take his mind off of Kasumi for a few hours...

Rei knew that pain wasn t a good thing, she d felt enough of it, and knew that her hand was supposed to be hurting a lot worse than it did right then. Maybe that odd man with the glasses really had known what he was doing, even if he looked like he expected her to be cured instantly. Which was foolish, really; injuries healed up, they didn t go away by themselves.

She looked behind her. Ryoga was still there, still with that really strange expression on his face that he did whenever he said "I m sorry." It wasn t his fault, it was hers. Why did she try to break a brick? She didn t have any bricks that needed breaking.

Ryoga looked up. The dust cloud that seemed to wind around Nerima was almost to them, and the speck at its head was close enough to hear. "Ha, haaa, my silky darlings! They ll never catch us!"

"Rei, look out!" He pushed her to the side of the road, she landed in a bush (soft, not prickly), and she watched as he launched himself at the head of the column. "Die, you old pervert!"

The shriveled old man evaded the attack, jumped on Ryoga s head, kept going. Then the rest of the column caught up, and Rei realized that the dust was kicked up by what had to be half the female population of Nerima. They were waving various wooden cleaning implements and screaming bloody murder, and in full pursuit of the older man. What was that he had in his bag? She hadn t seen an umbrella... Where was Ryoga? Oh, there, trampled into the pavement. He got up, launched himself after the crowd...

And disappeared two blocks down. She ran to catch up, Gendo-san would be really ticked if she lost him here... but he was gone. His clothes were still there, though. And his pack. Something was moving down there... that s it. A small, black pig.

She looked closer at the pig, which looked completely stunned and a little angry. It was wearing Ryoga s headband. His pet? No chance, he didn t have any pets. There was something in the headband. Neural interface modules, two of them. There were only four of them, period, and Rei had the other two.

That made this pig Ryoga. Which was impossible. Of course, she had spent her entire life around the impossible and this wasn t that strange. She picked the pig up, packed the clothes into the pack, shouldered it (sheesh this is heavy!) and started for home.

Great, Ryoga. Just great. You had to go and find the ONE sprinkler system in Nerima that was on at that exact moment! He was furious with himself, mostly because Rei didn t know about the curse. There was no way she was going to run across any hot water anytime soon.

A few months back, in a particularly boring time in Nerima, Ranma and Ryoga had spent some time hiding kettles, water bottles, and instant heating tabs at a few places in Nerima. They figured it could come in handy...

Hey, there was hot water in his thermos, right? Except he couldn t get his thermos now. Rei had it in his pack (how did she manage to carry the thing?) and he couldn t tell her to let him have it. Plus, he d be stark naked when she did. He could see the look on his dad s face when she told him. Maybe it was better this way.

Where were they? This wasn t Misato s apartment (which was a good thing, considering) but he didn t recognize the place. It was pretty run-down, however. Rei opened the door to the apartment, it wasn t locked, and the mailbox on it was overflowing with old letters. She dragged both pig and pack inside before collapsing on the bed. "That s one heavy pack, Ryoga." Was she talking to him? No, she had addressed the air, it seemed.

Hey, that hall must lead to either a kitchen or bathroom. When opportunity knocks... he headed out. The first door was indeed a kitchen, but he wouldn t be able to get on the shelf to get his hot water, anyway. The next door was the bathroom. He pushed it open, sneaked inside, and pushed it closed. The hot water handle on the shower was rusty, but he managed to push it anyway. Ahhhh.

He poked his head (now with headband properly placed) out of the door and said, "Could you bring me my clothes? It s cold in here!" So that s what a shocked Rei looked like. Wasn t too different from the ordinary Rei, just really open eyes and open mouth, but then again...

She handed him a bundle. "Here." He closed the door, scrambled back into his clothing, and stepped back out. "How did you turn into a pig, Hibiki-kun?" Well, no chance of her assuming it was a freak coincidence. How did Akane keep from catching on?

"Long story. Can I sit down?" She motioned to the one chair in the room. The apartment was a wreck. Bed, iron frame, made. One set of drawers, closed, with glass of water on top. Also a pair of glasses. Broken glasses. Nightstand, one lamp. Bloody bandages all over the floor. Chipped plaster. What was she doing living here? "Here goes. There s a place in China called Jusenkyo."

"I know that."

NO way. Nobody knew about Jusenkyo. "Well, then you know about the curses and everything?"

"Not really. Hibiki-san said the word sometime."

His dad? How did HE know, for that matter? "Well, there, I fell in a pool. Spring of Drowned Pig. It cursed me, and now whenever I get splashed with cold water, I turn into a pig."

"And hot water changes you back?"

Hey, she caught on pretty quickly. "Yeah, it does. You know that Ranma guy? He s got the same problem, except he changes into a girl when he gets wet. His dad turns into a panda."

Rei s face was doing something strange. Was she choking? No, she was laughing. She rolled off her seat on the bed. "Hah hah hah ahah haaaa. That s funny. I never understood humor before." She sat down again. "Really?"

That was one reaction. "Really. What do you mean, you didn t understand humor?"

"First joke anybody ever told me. It s funny. I thought jokes weren t real, though."

"Well, this one is. You won t tell anyone, will you?"

"Would you believe it?"

"Well, no. Not until it happened to me. But I still don t want everybody to know."

"Gendo-san would understand."

"Not likely."

"Yes, he would. He always does."

He looked at her. This was another emotion, although he couldn t read it at all. "What kind of person is my father?"

She thought about that for a second. "I don t really know how to put it. Misato calls him..."

"I ve heard."

"Well, I don t think he is like that. Nice, maybe. He s nice."

"Well, that s good."

"And he didn t like you much. Before. Now I don t know."

"Yeah, well, it was mutual. Does he still get lost?"

"Of course, that why Fuyutsuki is there."

"Of course." He stood up, looking at the glasses on the dresser. "Yours?"

"No, they were Gendo-san s. He pulled me out of the plug after the accident."

"Yeah, I heard about that... so, he s the hero type is he?"

"No, not like that." Rei cocked her head. "I think he likes me."

Sweatdrop. "What!"

"When I m around, he s nice. When Misato is around, he s like all the stuff Misato says. I don t understand it."

Ryoga went over to his pack. After a couple of seconds digging, he came up with a miniature Tokyo Tower. He sat it on the nightstand. "For carrying me here. Thanks."

"It s my job. How do you carry that pack?"

It wasn t hard, just two hundred pounds with the umbrella. "How did YOU carry the pack? It weighs what, twice what you do?"

End of part four

Send comments, flames, et cetera to akent Yes, I admit it, I killed her. Any objections?  



	5. Chapter 5

Ryoga threw his backpack over his shoulders, grabbed his umbrella. It had been a long week... school could really, really get boring. Monotonous. Even lost, Ryoga had always had a lot of things to look at. The same desk, day after day, just didn t do anything for him. At least on Sunday, he could kick back and relax.

He turned around. "I ll be back tonight, Misato." As soon as Rei got there, he could go. For a second, he thought about leaving anyway. Nah. He d just end up wandering around for a while. Probably wouldn t even get to Nerima before somebody or other rounded him up. Besides, an Angel might show up. Rei being a pilot was all well and good, but she wasn t really good at fighting.

He heard a knock on the door and punched the "open" button. There was Rei, in school uniform. Did she even own any other clothes? Well, yes, but that plug suit might raise a few questions. And eyebrows, come to think of it. "Where are we going today, Hibiki-kun?"

"As if you have to ask." Ryoga still wasn t used to the idea of getting where you left to go, and was taking advantage of the situation to the fullest. He could see Akane on a regular basis. Odd, but nice.

"Let s go. I ll bring him back tonight, Misato."

A hand waved from the other room. "All right, guys. See you later. Stay out of trouble, Ryoga!"

Easier said than done, right? Ryoga stepped out and closed the door behind him. He adjusted his bandana and smiled. "We re off."

Paradise Lost, part 5 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax -  
This time, Rei knew where she was headed. It wasn t really hard to find, and the traffic was absurdly light. For some reason, everybody took off on Sundays. It didn t make much sense, which indicated to Rei that it was probably true.

Rei glanced behind her. Ryoga was still there, still smiling. A full-  
time job, keeping up with Ryoga. He would wander off at the least chance... not that he was trying. He just had a lousy sense of direction. How could you have a lousy sense of direction? Well, Gendo did.

What was he so happy about? She decided to try asking him. It didn t usually work (more confusing than clarifying, usually) but it was better than guesswork. "You re happy today."

"Well, yeah. No school and now this."

"This?" Obviously he was talking about heading to see his friends.

He gestured, up, around, at everything. "Yeah, you know, this. All this."

Okay, that was interesting. Everything wasn t making him happy, that much was obvious. Just generally happy? No reason in particular? It looked fun. She d have to try it, sometime. "Why do you always go to the same place?"

"Always? It s only the second time. Besides, I usually can t do that. It s a nice change of pace, going to the same place regularly." And she thought he hated school. "Why, do you have a better idea?"

Actually, she was hungry. And thirsty. When she had awakened that morning, her water beaker had something growing in it. It had smelled pretty bad too, so she tossed it in the sink and left. "I could eat." She wondered how he would take that.

He nodded to himself. "Yeah, whatever breakfast was supposed to be this morning, I couldn t eat it. You want to go to Ucchan s again?"

That would be the brown-haired girl. Nice, but a little bit on the strange side. Whatever she had talked about with Ryoga, he d been surprised. "What are my choices?" My, but she was in a talkative mood today.

"Well, we could always eat at Ranma s. Normally Kasumi does all the cooking, and it s really good. Or..." He paused, looked ahead of her. Somebody was pedaling a bike. On the top rail of the fence. Compared to that, her purple hair seemed ordinary. "I haven t been to the Nekohanten in a while. Feel like noodles?"

Well, noodles were ordinary. "Fine, noodles. Where?"

"Follow her."

"What, on the fence?"

"Rei, that was almost a joke."

Hey, he had noticed. She revised her evaluation of his intelligence up a little bit. A very small bit.

"Whatever, let s go."

Cologne didn t turn as her daughter came in the door. Her ki was all through the Nekohanten anyway, it wouldn t interfere with anything. Shampoo stopped only long enough to grab six more bowls of ramen before leaving again. Took her six seconds; she was getting too slow. Ramen got cold, you know.

At another entrance, she did turn her head. Well, well. Ryoga hadn t found his way to her restaurant in quite some time. Of course, he never really had any reason to come in, and she suspected that he still blamed her for that little pig-cooking accident. His fault for falling in a cursed pool, but would he listen? Nooooo. And he had somebody with him...

Cologne turned around completely. Even three hundred years of experience couldn t let her leave her back undefended, not when there was a newcomer. She noted the red irises as interesting. Blue hair as irrelevant. School uniform, fairly mundane. She had a weapon concealed under the jacket, though. Modern firearm, small, and something counterbalancing it on the other side. Bullets? Probably. You could learn a lot from cop shows.

Ryoga sat down at the counter. "Two ramen, baasan. For here."

The girl spoke softly. "No meat in mine, please."

Meat in a plain order of ramen? Not likely. "Go away, Ryoga. I m running a business here." Even if nobody was around this early. "I m not a charity."

The fool started to scratch the back of his head. "Hey, is it impossible for a guy to pay for something here?" How did he get any money? It s not like he could hold down a job. What was that in his hand? A thousand-yen bill. Well, paying customers were always welcome. Whoever the girl was, she was looking at Ryoga too. Surprised?

"Where did you get that money, Hibiki-kun?" Cologne wouldn t have asked, she didn t really care, but the answer would be fairly interesting. Life was so entertaining since she had come from China, that was sure.

"I asked Misato whether or not there was a salary attached. Turns out there is, a nice one. Hazard pay." What had he revealed? He s employed. It s dangerous. His employer is named Misato. Whatever he s doing, it might NOT be a paid position, or he wouldn t have had to ask. Probably, since he was a little stupid. Shouldn t have rammed his head into so many rocks, she supposed. Now what was that girl doing? It looked like anger, only a little. Annoyance. Very little annoyance. Huh?

"Well, well. Two orders coming up." This could be very interesting. "So, young man, just where did you wander off to this time? And who s your little friend?" Banter was always a great tool to find out information, and it passed the time while cooking.

"She s Rei Ayanami. Rei, meet baasan. I mean Cologne. Sorry. She runs this place."

"Nice to meet you." More interesting by the second. Ryoga knew Rei well enough to use her first name without her getting angry. Not "Rei-chan", though. Rei nodded back. Quiet, too. An odd pair, these two. "Here s your ramen. Eat up."

Ryoga talked around a mouthful of noodles. "Hey, how s things been going?" She d expected that; it took a lot of doing to keep up with local events even when one was there all the time.

She wondered what to tell him first. "Well, I assume you ve heard about Kodachi." He nodded. And his face changed, just for a second. Oho! "They still don t know anything about it. Nobody s really looking, of course."

"Why not?" Rei seemed to be enjoying hers as well, but it was difficult to tell; she was VERY hard to read.

"You don t know Kodachi, young girl. She was crazy, completely insane. She even thought that she could have my young son-in-law." As if Cologne would permit THAT. "Not even her brother mourned her. Such a pity; she was so easy to manipulate."

Ryoga had finished already. She always wondered where he had learned to eat so quickly. A useful skill, one she possessed herself. "You re not still thinking of getting Ranma to marry Shampoo, are you, baasan?"

Cologne laughed. "Of course, silly fool. He can t win against thousands of years of tradition. It s just taking a while, that s all." Too long, of course. Her fault? Maybe, she did enjoy Japan much more than the old village. "Besides, don t you want me to succeed? I know how you feel about the Tendo girl, after all." Pale to scarlet in one second. Remarkable circulation, that boy. And the girl was surprised too (was she? Wide eyes, but it didn t reach the rest of her face.) "You should be helping me."

Ryoga managed to compose himself, a little. "We tried that once. It didn t work, if I remember correctly."

Ungrateful child. "I taught you the bakusai tenketsu technique perfectly, in only a week. That s invaluable knowledge, and you re a much stronger fighter now. It was your fault that you lost."

"You could have told me how to use it, you know. Oh well. That was what, two years ago?"

"Just about... you haven t been trying very hard since then, either. You didn t give up, did you?" He couldn t have, not with that reaction, but his response would answer more questions. And Rei s response, if there was one.

This time, Ryoga answered almost calmly. "Yeah, well, that approach wasn t working. I ll think of something." He had already thought of something, but he didn t think it would work either. This new job of his?

"Perhaps finding a cure for your condition should be your first concern, young pig." A little more cutting, this time.

He looked at Cologne, eyes steady. "That was low, baasan." Rei was... chuckling. She obviously knew about Ryoga s curse, then. This was great entertainment, but Cologne didn t want to push it. She could feel his battle aura, quiet but present now, and she knew how he fought. He couldn t win, not in a hundred years, but there was no point in releasing the bull in THIS Chinese shop.

"I ll take it back, then. Good luck to you in your efforts." She handed him back slightly more change than the bill indicated. Cologne believed fully in offering an interesting-customer discount, and he d given her a whole day of thought with his business.

He looked at the pile of change. "Hey, thanks, no problem." She noted that he did not return her wish. Shampoo had never managed to get along with Ryoga, and he had caught the fallout of a couple of their schemes. Not bad blood, but honest dislike. It was refreshing. "Rei, you done?"

"Yes. Let s go."

At least she had enjoyed her ramen. Cologne believed in doing everything well. She had left the bowl half-full, though. Made sense... she couldn t be more than half Ryoga s mass, and there wasn t a small ramen bowl on the menu.

Red irises. Hm. That was a new one.

Ryoga was more than a little steamed. Sure, baasan hadn t let anything out of the bag... although it would have been trouble if Rei hadn t already known. Surely baasan couldn t have known that Rei knew. Right? He knew that she was much smarter than him. Maybe wisdom does come with age. Anyway, no big deal.

"What s this about you liking the Tendo girl, Hibiki-kun?"

Right! THAT S what he was angry about. Just telling Rei like that! It didn t help that she was right, didn t help that she had a good reason to see Ryoga succeed. What a jackass! Oh, yes, he was unhappy. "Nothing, really. She was joking around." Did it work?

No. Rei wasn t buying any today. "You didn t laugh. You blushed. That means you were embarrassed. That means it had to be at least partly true. Right?"

Well, more like perfectly dead center. "Well, yeah."

Rei looked puzzled. "It s that Akane, then, right? Or the older one?"

Kasumi? That WAS funny. The only person in all of Nerima that had ever been attracted to Kasumi, as far as he knew, was Dr. Tofu. "There s another one, you know. You didn t ever meet Nabiki." Not a bad thing, that.

"You don t like Nabiki or you wouldn t have said her name like that."

Oops. He was being obvious. "You re jumping to conclusions."

"No, I m not. You like Akane."

"Prove it." Maybe, just maybe, he could find a way to convince her that she was wrong. Hard, but possible.

"You ate that... thing that Akane cooked, right?"

"Well, yeah. I wanted to make her feel better." It had worked, too. Where was Rei going with this?

"You don t eat Misato s lousy cooking. Therefore, something s different about Misato and Akane."

"Misato s cooking is nothing like Akane s." True, it was not at all toxic, just lousy. But he was eating the toxic one...

"I ve tasted Misato s cooking. It was bad enough. It can t be that you just think Akane is cute, because people say that Misato s cute as well."

"No way!" Well, she was quite attractive, but for some reason even THINKING of Misato that way gave him a cold shudder. Nothing he could put a finger on, though. "Cut it out!"

"And it s not because she needed you to make her feel better, because that Ranma person was eating it too."

She would remind him of that. "Ranma is Akane s fianc . That s why he was eating it." That slowed her down for a second.

"Even better. He must love her to do that. Therefore, you doing that must mean that you at least like her. And that old woman just proved it." She didn t have to look so smug about it! Well, Rei had figured him out. This day had started so well, too...

And Kuno stepped from around the corner. He had his sword, a bouquet of roses, and a goofy expression on his face. "Hi, Kuno. Off to see Akane again?"

"Well met, wanderer. Yes, again I set forth to woo the noble Akane Tendo. Her beauty is unmatched among all of the world s women..."

"Except for one, right?" It was SO fun to bait Kuno.

"Ah, yes, the pig-tailed girl. I will free her from the clutches of the evil Saotome forthwith. Will you aid me, prodigal warrior?"

Good, an opportunity to work out aggression. "No chance. You re not getting within a mile of the dojo today, bokken boy."

Rei stepped back as the odd guy leveled his sword at Ryoga. Why would somebody carry a WOODEN sword around? She was still a little confused about the whole Akane thing, even if she did think that she had guessed right.

The "Kuno" person spoke. "If you attempt to delay me from the arms of my beloved, you will become my enemy."

Ryoga tossed his pack aside (it made a crater!) and brandished his umbrella. "Come on then. I could use a good fight!"

"Cretin I shall smite thee! Strike!"

Oh, well, why not carry a wooden sword if it could go through concrete? Although Ryoga wasn t there anymore... he d jumped in time. The Kuno guy was fast with his sword. When Ryoga landed, he attacked, faster than Rei could follow, hitting Ryoga again and again. Mostly chest hits, straight jabs, the kind that would really bruise too. He finished the attack with a swing to the head.

"Heh. My turn!" Ryoga gripped his weapon like a golf club, swung a shallow arc, down to up. Up into Kuno. And up again, with Kuno. Hey! Kuno s still going up. And up. And up. At that rate, he d make low orbit. "Feh. Won t he ever quit?" Ryoga picked up his pack, turned to keep walking. Turned the wrong way.

"Over here, Hibiki-kun." She looked at the fallen roses. "What was that all about? You know him?"

"Oh, that was just Kuno. Looks dangerous, but he s harmless."

"And all of those sword swings?"

"Nothing. Just like taking a shower. He s got one technique, that s it."

Well, it LOOKED to be impressive. "Let s go."

Ring. Huh? Ring. What rings in the middle of the street? Ring. OH, right, the pocket phone. Rei fished it out of her vest. "Yes?"

"Rei, this is Fuyutsuki. We need you and Ryoga, right now. Where are you?"

Rei fiddled with the controls on the GPS system for a second, then read off a set of coordinates to Fuyutsuki. "Thanks, Rei. We ll send a helicopter. WAIT right there, okay?"

"Yes, right here." Rei hung up the phone. "Ryoga, we have to wait for the helicopter here."

He looked a bit confused. "Helicopter? What? Here? Why?"

"Probably an Angel. Why else?" Well, her second lesson in Anything Goes Martial Arts would just have to wait. With luck, she wouldn t need it, anyway.

"Great. This day just gets better and better."

Well, now, THAT was interesting. A helicopter, not more than ten blocks away. And it had picked up both Ryoga and the Rei girl. Obviously, Cologne thought to herself, there s even MORE going on than I suspected. And a NERV helicopter at that. Cologne had seen the sign before, you couldn t go six feet in Tokyo-3 without seeing it somewhere, but this was different.

Ryoga s new job. He worked for NERV? What in Hades could a massive organization want with a short-tempered and eternally lost boy like Ryoga?

Cologne set out the "Closed" sign and secured her shutters. When NERV starts moving around, she knew, something was about to happen. Well, one thing, and twice so far, but close enough for caution. With luck, Shampoo would be back soon. And Mousse, useless as he was. Not even he deserved to get caught in something like this.

She hopped up to the roof and waited... it should be quite a show.

Misato ushered the two into the locker room. "Okay, guys, suit up. Ryoga, you re going out there first. Rei, we ll use you as backup." It had to be done. Until Ritsuko managed to track down that feedback error, it would be suicide for Rei to engage in hand-to-hand combat with an Angel.

"How come, Misato? It s always easier two-on-one."

"Yeah, Ryoga-kun, but her Eva s still not working right. If it got hurt while fighting, it would really pound Rei."

Ryoga paused at that. "What, you mean worse than normal?"

"Yeah, lots worse."

"That d kill Rei. Almost kills me."

He hadn t ever put it that way before. "That s why you ve got to go."

"All right. What do you know about it?"

Rei was being quiet, wasn t she? Except she was laughing. No, it had to just look like she was laughing, because she didn t laugh. Besides, it s more of a twitch of the lips and a cough anyway. Right? "It s an octahedron. Eight-sided figure, right? Blue. Definitely an Angel. That s all we can tell from just looking."

"How many arms? Legs? What else?"

"Nothing, just the body. Shouldn t be too bad."

"Right. I m ready. See you later, Rei."

"Goodbye, Hibiki-kun."

God, but Misato couldn t stand how Rei always did that. Like she d never see you again. No way to talk to Ryoga right before a fight. "Yeah, go kick some butt for me, Ryoga."

"Right." He left for the Eva cage.

Ryoga tensed. How was a big geometric shape going to fight? Nothing to hit him with. Maybe it d try to ram him? That would be great. Nice, easy, one-shot kill there. As near as they could tell, its core was at the exact center. He hadn t understood why the others had that core hanging out where anybody could hurt it.

\"Launch the Eva."/

He grunted as the Evangelion launched. He d try to take it on just outside of Tokyo-3 s core. Shouldn t be too much property damage, that way. It was BIG, a couple hundred meters in dimension. He felt sorry for whoever owned what it would fall on.

One hundred meters to surface.

\"High energy reaction detected in the target s core!"/ That was Hyuuga. What did that mean?

Fifty meters to surface. The blast doors were open by now (or he was going to have a major headache, he thought) and the rails should be out. He heard some static through his commlink, something like, "no!" Couldn t have been.

Surface. He looked up... and a beam of light came at him. It started at the Angel s surface, went through a building (it was melting the building!) and right...

Ryoga s world dissolved into pain.

Ranma nudged Akane. "Bet they didn t plan on THAT." Man, but these fights were fun to watch. Free entertainment, and it was real, too! Too bad that everybody in town couldn t watch. Of course, they d get flattened. It was really cool how that building had melted.

"I hope that the robot s okay."

Of course the robot was okay, the robot always won these things. "Well, there it goes back down. They ll fix it and we ll catch Round Two."

She nodded. "Well, all right. Let s go have some lunch." Great idea, that. Lunch was never a bad thing... "I ve got a recipe to try." Or was it? Eep.

Misato caught up with Ritsuko in the hallway. "What just happened there? Is Ryoga..."

Ritsuko looked worried. "He s alive. Not by much, though. It might have fried some neurons, so we ve got to keep him under for a couple of hours. That should minimize the damage."

"Thank God." That was good; the big lug could use all the spare neurons he had. "What about Eva?" Without the pilot, the Eva wouldn t move; without the robot, Ryoga couldn t fight. At least not that.

"Damage was fairly bad. Melted through most of the chest armor. Good thing you pulled him out when you did; it would have melted through in another second or so. It should have melted through anyway." Another puzzled look. Well, if the Eva was all right, then they could still fight the Angel. "What s our time limit?"

"That drill should get into the Geofront just after midnight." The Angel was poised directly over NERV headquarters. If it made it into the Geofront... NERV was armored, a little, but it wouldn t last long against that particle cannon. "You remember the plan?"

"Please." Ritsuko blinked. "Although I m still not sure it ll work. Running all the power in Japan through a prototype cannon? It ll fry the fuses. We might be able to rig something up, however..."

"We only need one shot."

"You mean you SHOULD only need one shot. Last time I checked, Ryoga was a bit twitchy with guns."

She hadn t thought of that. "Well, then we ll have Rei shoot it. Her Eva s working again, right?"

"Yes, but there s some kind of feedback error still in the connections. It ll throw her accuracy off by a good percentage. And it still kicks into her sensorium WAY too much. She ll be hurting if it shoots back."

So it would have to be Ryoga, after all. "Well, we ll shoot with Ryoga, then. I ll get Rei to wake him up in an hour."

"Great. I ll take care of this end. Er, you did get permission from Gendo for all this, right?"

"Yeah, he said okay." Well, he had just gestured a bit, and done that thing with his hands, and angled his glasses just so to catch the light, but she supposed that qualified as permission.

Ryoga fuzzed back into consciousness. Man, but that had hurt. Like getting hit in the chest with a pickaxe. Or eating Akane s leftovers, but more so. He looked over, found Rei. She was standing next to a cart. "Hibiki-kun, are you awake?"

As if his eyes normally opened in his sleep. "Yeah, sort of. What happened?"

"You were shot by the Angel." Figured. If it couldn t hit him, it probably had some kind of energy thing. "Misato s got an idea. She sent me here to brief you."

"Brief me?" An idea. Well, whatever. "Let s hear it."

"At 1730, pilots Hibiki and Ayanami will..."

"Give me the short version."

"At midnight, you re going to shoot the Angel. Misato and Ritsuko are rigging up a big gun, a particle acceleration cannon. It should have enough power to go through the AT field and destroy the Angel. You get to play sniper."

Great. "And you?"

"I don t know the word. You ve watched American football, right?"

Well, he d seen some of it. Heck, he d seen a game live. Good timing on his "trip" to Hawaii that year. "Sure."

"What do you call the person between the guy with the ball and the other team?" She must not watch much football; she doesn t seem to know what a quarterback is either.

"Lineman. Blocker. Wait a minute..."

"That s it."

Now that was stupid. "Block what?"

"It might shoot back."

Really stupid. "Then won t you get shot?"

Rei grinned, just a little. "Ritsuko s got something else in mind. Big shield."

Well, Misato always said that Ritsuko knew everything. "Well, that could work. What s that?"

"Your lunch. Eat something."

He sat up, reached for the cart. Realized that he wasn t wearing anything under his sheet.

"Why are you turning red, Hibiki-kun?" As if she didn t know. She tossed a package to him. "New plug suit. Don t show up looking like that." Yes, now she was definitely smiling.

"Quit teasing me, it s not fair."

"I ll see you at the Eva cage when you re ready. Goodbye." She closed the door behind her.

"Thank you, General." Kensuke slid his glasses back up on his nose. Now, thanks to a certain leak, he knew about the NERV plan for the evening. And had permission to watch. He grabbed two spare tape batteries from the quick-charger and turned off all of his computer equipment. The power outage would knock it all out anyway.

"So, why aren t they here yet, Kensuke?"

"Can it, Touji. They ll be here. Just a... there they are."

"Hey, yeah!" The Evangelion robot was really cool. Huge, walking piles of metal. Even with Ryoga as a pilot, it was impressive. "Hey, there s two of them!" Touji had heard that Rei was a pilot too... but not that she had her own Evangelion. "Bright orange?"

Kensuke already had his camera rolling. "I guess they re not worried about camouflage. I m so envious!"

Misato sat down in the portable command trailer. So far, so good. The rifle was ready, and Ryoga had it in position. There were four fuses, each one good for one shot only. Of course, they d never get four shots off, but better to have extra ammunition.

The power trucks were also in place. In minutes, every watt produced by every nuclear reactor and coal and oil plant in Japan would run through those cables and into the gun. Then, into the Angel. Again, the cooling system would only hold it together for a few shots. It would be enough.

Ritsuko had even patched up a targeting system for Ryoga. The beam didn t fire straight, for a lot of odd technical reasons that Misato didn t understand. With the little doodad in Ryoga s cockpit, though, he d only have to wait for the target to converge and pull the trigger. The computer would aim for him.

If the Angel shot back, they d be ready. Unit 00 was equipped with a shield, something they d scavenged from an old space vehicle. It was large enough to cover an Eva, and she d said that it would hold under seventeen seconds of fire. Maybe two shots worth, if they were lucky. Better if it wasn t needed.

Ryoga and Rei were out by their loading platforms, waiting for the order to start. This one would be quick.

Ryoga looked out over Tokyo-3. The whole town was dark. The only light came from the Angel, which was lit up like a neon sign. He was still a bit worried... but it sounded easy enough. Just don t miss, Misato had said. He wouldn t miss.

"Hey, Rei, why do you pilot Eva?" It wasn t important, but it would pass the time.

She looked at the sky. "It s a bond. It makes me feel closer..."

"To who?"

"Everybody."

Well, that was cool. He adjusted his headband. "It s about time."

"Don t worry, Hibiki-kun. I ll protect you."

He started to laugh. Rei, who couldn t weigh more than ninety pounds soaking wet, who couldn t out-fight Gosunkugi, probably, protecting him, Ryoga the Immortal? Well, the thing HAD laid him out once already today. "Every little bit helps." He jumped up to the waiting entry plug. She followed suit, in hers.

"Hey, quit crowding, everybody! There s plenty of room on the roof here." Ranma groaned. Of course, Nabiki would have rented out the roof of the tallest building in Nerima. And, of course, she would charge a fee to everybody who wanted to watch.

She had said that the next attack would come at midnight. Ranma wasn t sure, but he wagered that she really did know. He had asked her, and she had referred to some "Ensign" guy who owed her a favor. No surprise that she was all through the military, too.

Well, at least she had picked a good spot. You could see everything here, from the Angel on the one side, to the mountain on the other side. NERV was going to do its thing from Mt. Fukoma, which was fairly close to Nerima. Not a straight line, thank goodness. There were already enough problems without fallout from this, too.

Everybody had decided to come and watch. It was a regular carnival, the way it was whenever he fought somebody. This time, he could sit back and watch. Even Soun and Pop were there, playing shogi by flashlight in the corner. Too bad that the lights were out. What were they going to do?

"Ready, Ryoga?" Misato looked at the control boards. Everything was green and go.

\"Yeah, it s ready."/

"All right. We re charging the gun. Fire when you get a target."

The power links came online, block by block, until over two hundred megawatts of power were available. Aoba checked off each as it was reported ready. "Gun charged, Captain Katsuragi. It s ready."

Maya shouted from her terminal. "High energy reading from the target!"

"No, not now!" It couldn t beat Ryoga to the trigger. It couldn t!

Everybody looked at the two beams of energy. The blue one, from the Angel, fired a split second after the golden one from the robot. The two neared each other.

Here, Ranma thought, was where the cool part would happen. Two energy beams hitting each other would produce a really big explosion... hey, they weren t going straight. What was happening? The blue beam bent, twisted around the gold. It hit, down near the base of the mountain. And the gold one wavered, hit...

"Hey, isn t that the high school?"

Akane had it right! By some really, really fortunate quirk, the beam had plowed into the third floor of Furinkan High School. That would blow the HELL out of all of Ranma s unfinished homework. A cheer went up from the watching crowd.

Ryoga looked at the beam in horror. Nothing could have survived that. It had hit the classroom, almost dead on. Ukyou was gone. Ranma was gone. Akane...

\"Damn it, Ryoga, change the fuse!"/

In a fog, he threw back the lever, prepared for another shot. He watched the targeting reticule through blurred eyes. It was made worse by the light from the Angel s second shot. Rei was managing to block it, but she wouldn t last much longer... he looked at the charging status. It was almost ready.

"Ryoga! Fire as soon as it s charged!" Damn! Misato had known that something like this would happen. "Damage report, somebody!"

Maya responded. "Its first shot hit the cooling trucks. The cables are going to go." Almost in response to this, the lights in the command trailer flickered.

"We re losing the lines to the cannon! Charging can t proceed!" Aoba was punching at his console frantically, trying to route power through the circuits that still functioned.

The gun wasn t charging. It had stopped charging.

Ryoga watched in horror as Rei s Evangelion fell. For some reason, the Angel sensed that they weren t a danger anymore. Its skin was melted, like somebody had taken a blowtorch to the entire Eva. He punched the button for contact. "Rei? Answer me. Rei?" No response.

All for nothing. The Angel was alive. It had killed Rei. It had killed everybody. HE had killed everybody. How had he missed? Ritsuko had said to let the computer line up the shot. How had he missed so badly?

He moved the Eva, threw away the useless gun. And screamed.

Nabiki stood up. "Round two goes to the Angel. Come on folks, pay up."

Ranma looked back at the mountain. There were a couple of fires, and it had been pretty obvious that one of the robots had been hit, but they had only fired the one shot. How come?

Wait. Something else was going on, there. A green glow. A really big, bright green glow. There! He could see the outline of one of the robots as it stood up. It threw away its gun (huh?) and threw its hands in front of it.

"Yes, Daddy, you have to pay up" Nabiki s words were lost in a roar. The robot fired a blast, dark green. It stretched from the mountain to the Angel, hit the barrier. Kept going. Came out the other side of the Angel. That was a ki blast! And HUGE! And familiar...

Oh God. That was a Shishi Hokodan attack. He d only seen it done by two people, and he was one. That meant...

And the high school...

And how come it was still glowing? Even brighter this time...

Oh no. Ranma jumped off the roof, started running. If he was right...

"What the hell was that? Ryoga-kun!"

"No response on the radio."

Misato stared at Unit 01. It was still glowing, still getting brighter. "Did the Angel do it? What s going on?"

Hyuuga reported from his station. "It s not the energy core, its output is stable."

"Well, then what s doing it?" Whatever it was, it had taken out the Angel. In one shot. That was one hell of a surprise.

"Power source is from inside Eva." That was Aoba. "From... from inside the entry plug!"

Misato turned around, looked at the screen. "You mean, that was RYOGA?"

"No response from the pilot readings." Maya, that time.

"Maya, eject the entry plug!"

"It s not working! The signal s not being received."

Ritsuko opened the door to the trailer. "What s going on, Misato?"

"We don t know yet. Blow the power cable!"

"Power cable detached."

Well, that gave the Eva five minutes to finish doing whatever it was doing. "How s Rei?"

"She s alive, but unconscious. Eva 00 is seriously damaged and not operational."

Ranma was running towards the mountain. That aura was Ryoga s battle aura. It was charging for a Complete Shishi Hokodan attack. The energy bolt from the sky would ordinarily level a house. If it was as much bigger as that first blast, however... it would flatten the city.

Only one thing could get Ryoga depressed enough to use that attack. He had to think that Akane was hurt, maybe even dead. Stupid of him to think that she d be in class at midnight on Sunday, but then again, it was Ryoga. He didn t always think in straight lines.

At this rate, he would never make it in time. He still had a couple of minutes before Ryoga cut loose, but it was too far on foot. He d have to take a car.

Of course, he didn t have a car. That meant he d have to just take one. In fact, that car looked like a good idea. Parked by the side of the road, and nobody was around. He smashed the window, unlocked the door. Brushed broken glass out of the seat. Slid in. Shut the door. Reached to turn on the motor...

There was no key. How do you start a car without a key? Ranma didn t know too much about car stealing. You could always hot-wire the car, but he didn t know how. What else... he remembered some movies. There, the keys were always in the car somewhere. He checked the visor. There they were. He shoved the key into the ignition and turned it.

Well, that turned the radio on. How about the other way? There it goes. Now how do you drive this thing? Left pedal stops. Right goes. Turn the wheel to steer. First, put it into gear. He moved the letter from "P" to "D"...

Ritsuko looked outside of the trailer. They had most of the fires under control, and the Angel was definitely dead. Eva, however, was still active, and it still had two minutes of power remaining. Ryoga had turned off his radio and wasn t moving. It was glowing, though, enough to cast shadows by now. Why was it glowing?

Something was moving on the access road. A light. Two lights, headlights to a car. They weren t moving in a straight line. She looked closer, saw the car. It had once been red, but now, there wasn t any paint on the sides, which were battered like they d been in a few wrecks. Both fenders were crushed. As she watched, the car hit the side of an embankment, flipped. It skidded to a stop and started burning.

The driver was still moving, though. The door opened and a blur shot out, something with red hair and red shirt and black pants. Two technicians moved to stop it. It didn t slow down, but both the techs crumpled like they d been poleaxed. She moved to intercept it, only to have it jump, at her. The last coherent thought Ritsuko had that night, before its feet hit her face, was that nothing should be able to jump that far, that fast...

Ranma jumped off the blonde and kept going. She would have picked a car with an open mug of water inside. It was a miracle that she d arrived in one piece. More or less. Obviously, driving took a lot more practice than it seemed.

She made it to the robots. One was down, and it looked like it had been melted. The other one, Ryoga s robot, was still glowing. From the battle aura, Ranma guessed that she had less than thirty seconds to stop Ryoga. Or at least make sure that he took himself out with everybody...

"Hey! Ryoga! Down here!"

Ryoga heard something, penetrated the fog of his despair. He had killed them, killed the Angel, but they were still dead. What was that? Ranma. Female. Alive. How could he have survived? It didn t matter. She was dead. With her dead, it didn t matter anymore. What was he saying?

He was saying... "Stop it." Something like that. Ryoga hit the external speaker switch with a snarl. "I killed her! I m sorry, Ranma. I killed everybody! I killed Akane!"

He was yelling now. "What re you talking about? It s MIDNIGHT, you moron. Nobody was there. Akane s okay!"

What? Hey, it was midnight. Akane was okay? Hey, yeah, it was midnight, he didn t shoot Akane, she was okay? "Really? She s okay?" He was laughing now, and crying. "She s okay! Hah hah! She s okay!" Everybody was fine, Akane, Ranma, Rei... oh God, Rei.

Ryoga hit the manual ejection switch. The entry plug spiraled out of his Eva, which slumped to the ground. He punched the hatch without waiting to drain the LCL, and flowed out to the ground. "Hey, Ranma, give me a hand! I ve got to check on Rei!"

"Rei? What s she doing here? What re YOU doing here, Ryoga?"

"It doesn t matter. I ll explain later. Come on!" He was still laughing. Maybe it WAS good to be alive.

The blast had knocked the armored plate off of Eva 00 s pilot compartment. Ranma grabbed the hatch handles, then snatched his hands back. "Oww hot!"

"Weakling." Ryoga grabbed the handles, barely feeling the heat of the metal. He twisted them around, then looked inside through the flow of LCL. Rei was there... she was moving. "Rei! Are you all right?"

"I m all right."

"Thank God. So, goodbye, is it?" He was still happy.

"Why are you crying, Hibiki-kun?"

He didn t know. "I just am, that s all."

She smiled, just a little. "Dummy."

Ryoga looked up, saw the approaching technicians, and Misato. "Look, Ranma, thanks for coming and all, but you d better go."

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, I don t think they ll be glad to see me. Next time, Ryoga, aim for Kuno s will ya?" With that, Ranma started to jump down the mountain.

"Ranma, whatever happened to you? Let me get some bandages for your hand. And some hot water."

"Thanks, Kasumi." What in heck were Ryoga and Rei doing piloting the robots? This was very weird, even for Ranma. He had better kick back for the night, though. Now he knew why people used seat belts. And it really hurt to break a window out with your fist. Next time, he d use a brick or something.

Cologne balanced on the end of her staff, looking over the city at the mountain. That had truly been a ki attack, one of incredible potency. And, judging from the source...

Ah, life was so interesting. Suddenly, she felt better about having fed Ryoga some ground-up Phoenix Pill in his ramen. It was just an experiment, true, she had dozens of the things that she didn t need. You just couldn t trust Jusenkyo Magical Spring Products to get an order right any more. He seemed to enjoy it, though. That girl, Rei, too.

End of part five

Questions, comments, flames go to akent


	6. Chapter 6

Misato climbed out of the command trailer. What exactly was going on? Five minutes ago, maybe less, Ryoga and the Angel fired at each other. Neither shot hit, although the Angel did manage to cripple the particle cannon s power supply trucks. Then, Rei stepped in and took the brunt of the next shot. After that...

Something ODD had happened. Odd, even for somebody used to working with huge robots that fought giant monsters. Odd, because there was NOTHING in the operations manual about the Eva being able to shoot, BY ITSELF, a huge energy blast. Bright green, yet. It had worked, though... the Angel was completely silent; a direct core hit through the AT field. Ritsuko would know what happened. Where did she get off to?

Oh, there she was. Lying on the ground? Not moving. Misato noticed, for the first time, the other damage. Next to one of the power cable trucks, a small red car was on its roof and burning. Ritsuko wasn t the only one down, either, she could see a couple of technicians that had been hurt, as well.

Misato ran over to Ritsuko. She had to adjust her eyes to compensate for the loss of glow from Unit 01. Whatever Ryoga had been doing, he wasn t doing it anymore... Ritsuko looked like she d been hit in the face. How best to wake her up? Smelling salts? None handy. Oh, sure, that ll work. Misato smiled, a little.

"Hey! Oww! What do you think you re doing, Misato?" Amazing what a well-placed slap could do, wasn t it.

She pulled Ritsuko to her feet. "What just happened out here?" It couldn t have taken long.

"Girl." Ritsuko paused, took a deep breath. "A girl drove in, crashed the car. I think it was a girl. Red hair, ponytail, black pants. Fast!"

"Get a hold of yourself!" Misato couldn t afford to have the science chief go hysterical now. "Fast? How fast? And where did she go?"

"All right. I m okay." Another deep breath. "Very fast. I didn t see those guys get hit. I didn t have time to move. At least it wasn t here for me. The way it jumped off my face, it had to..." Ritsuko s face turned towards the two downed Evangelions.

"Oh God, Ryoga!" Misato started running, leaving Ritsuko to get herself collected. Eva 01 was inert, its entry plug ejected and empty. Something over by Eva 00. She shouted for some technicians to help her out. Help her what? Didn t matter. Eva 00 had its entry plug out too, and there was Ryoga, in his plug suit. He had Rei, was helping her get out of the plug. Something else? There. A flash of motion, red and red on black. It was running for the city, into the forest at the base of the mountain. Whatever it was, it hadn t hurt the pilots.

She yelled at them. "Ryoga? Are you all right? What about Rei?"

He turned, saw her. Yelled something at the forest. Then, he answered, "Yeah, I m fine. Rei looks okay, too."

"I m okay." That came from inside the entry plug. Rei? Had to have been.

Misato closed the distance between the two. "You did it! What the hell did you do? Never mind, tell me later." She was laughing, now. Another Angel down... and nobody hurt, although from the looks of Eva 00 it would take a while to repair.

"Misato, I m beat. I m going to get some sleep. Have somebody drag me home, later." Ryoga handed Rei off to a couple of power technicians and slumped against the fallen arm of Eva 00.

Paradise Lost, part 6 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax -  
Oog. Sometimes, Ryoga thought, it just wasn t worth waking up in the morning. He reached over, brought his hand down on the alarm clock. Too hard. The mild electric shock he received from the broken equipment was much better at waking him up than the metal station the radio had been tuned to. He rolled over...

And sat up. Damn it all. He d been awake too early, too often, for his rhythms to let him rest now. He still felt drained, a little. He wasn t aware that there WAS that much ki in existence, much less his ability to use it. Hey, it had worked. And she was alive! Rei, too. He remembered getting her out of the plug before he went under.

He crawled his way into the kitchen. "Hey, Misato... Get up, will ya?"

She stepped out of her room. If she felt half as bad as she looked, she would have been dead. Misato definitely was NOT a morning person. "What... how come you re up so early, Ryoga?" She opened the fridge, grabbed the first beer she found.

"Hey, wait a second. You got some Gatorade in there?" He needed something to replenish his electrolytes, after a shot like that.

"No, but I do have this sports drink stuff... Free sample I got in the mail. Here." She tossed him the bottle.

Ah. Cold, wet, and sugary. Too bad what it tasted like, but breakfast wouldn t have been any better. "I m NOT going in to class today."

"Good, have a seat." What, no lecture on the value of education? Well, it was pretty early. "Who was that last night?" She popped the tab on her beer.

"Who was what?" He had seen this coming, sort of. Ryoga felt a little bit guilty about getting Ranma tied up in this whole thing, after all, Ranma didn t almost blow up the city in a fit of depression last night. Maybe he could lie about it. It would have to be good. He remembered the "Big Lie" technique. Wouldn t work, but he had to be able to say that he had tried.

"That girl from last night. What was she doing there?"

"Oh, that. Don t worry about him, he s just somebody I know."

Misato took another slug of beer, did a double take. "Him?"

"Her, I mean." Swallow the drink, Ryoga. "I knew her from way back."

"You know she knocked out Ritsuko, right?"

No, he hadn t. "She does stuff like that. Next time I see her, I ll talk to her."

"Well, see that you do, okay?" Hey, she bought it. "And what the hell did you do to the Angel last night? FOOM! I ve never seen anything like that."

Well, out of the frying pan... "What do you mean, you ve never seen anything like it? It s your Eva." Now THAT would never work.

Misato goggled, grabbed a second beer. "Eva can t do that. You think I would have done all the mess with the power and the cannon if you could have just done that?"

"I guess not." It would have been too good to be true. At least he d gotten away with one. "Okay, here goes. That was a ki blast."

"Ki? That s what, a martial arts term?"

"Yeah, it s like the power generated by living things. If you concentrate, you can do things with it. That was one of those things."

She was impressed. "Wow! Hey, but how did you know it would work on an Angel? And how did you practice it? Without leveling the city."

"To be honest, I wasn t really paying attention to what I was doing. Side effect of the Shishi Hokodan attack. You ve got to be really, really depressed to pull it off."

"You mean to tell me that you flattened that thing because you weren t paying attention to it?" Sarcasm? Probably, from the tone.

"Yeah. I ve never fired one off that big, though. Normally it s only a few feet across. Maybe the Eva did some of it."

"This is a lot to swallow, Ryoga."

Ryoga tossed the empty sports drink at the wastebasket, started rummaging in the pantry for breakfast. "What, you want a demonstration?"

"Yeah, prove it."

"First off, it d hurt like hell. Second, it would trash the apartment." Trash it more. "Third, I can t. I m in a good mood this morning."

She downed her third beer. "Look, that s getting a bit weird, even for me. I m going in to work this morning, have to file the reports from last night. Don t wander off or anything."

Hey! Last night. "How s Rei doing?"

"She s all right. A bit rattled, although it s hard to tell with her. She keeps grinning, it s scaring me."

That was interesting. "Go get ready for work."

"Sure." She started ambling toward the shower. "Oh, one more thing. Ryoga..."

"Yeah?" What was it now?

"Good job."

"Well, at least we get ONE day off. It takes some time to put up temporary classrooms."

"Quit complaining, Ranma. You could use the sleep anyway. Why did you go running off like that last night?"

"You are SO uncute, Akane." If anything would get her to stop asking, that would do the job.

Of course, it would also make her hit him over the head. Where did she get those mallets from? Thin air?

The doorbell rang. Ryoga sat up, shuffled to the door. "Huh?" Misato had already left for NERV headquarters, and he was making up for lost sleep. He was feeling much better now, though.

"Good morning, Hibiki-kun!" The chorus came from Kensuke and Touji. Hadn t they abandoned this dumb plan when Rei started showing up?

"Morning, guys. Misato s gone." Well, Touji was disappointed. Heh. "What are you doing here?"

Kensuke peeked inside. "Yeah, she s gone, all right... we re here to take you to school, dummy."

"Oh yeah? Where s Rei?" She s asleep, stupid, just like he had been before these two showed up.

The two looked outside the door. "I m right here, Hibiki-kun." Rei stuck her head in the doorway. "Come on, you re late already."

"Not going in today. Still have a headache from yesterday." It wasn t precisely true. He d have some headaches about yesterday later on, they just weren t here yet.

Rei narrowed her eyes. "I can t go to school without you, you know. Gendo-san said so."

"So don t go. What are they doing in class today, anyway?"

"Review of the Second Impact stuff." Touji scratched his head. "Man, that s all we ever get in class, nowadays."

"See, Rei? We don t even need to show up today." The other two looked at him strangely. "Besides, I need to go see a friend."

"Ranma, right? I thought I saw him last night." She smiled. She knew, he had told her about Ranma, but she d never actually seen it happen.

"Yeah, him. Let s go. You okay for walking?" Ryoga grabbed his pack, checking to make sure his umbrella was handy.

"Should be. I just got some sleep last night."

"Fine, let s go."

"Hey, where are you going?" Kensuke looked at Ryoga, then Rei. "You can t just cut class!"

"Not without taking us along, right, Kensuke?"

"Right, Touji."

"Sorry guys, this is Eva pilots only."

"Yes, sensei, Hibiki-kun decided to ditch today!"

That was dirty. "You wouldn t Touji."

"Try me."

"Looks like you re stuck with them." Now what did Rei think was funny about that?

"All right, you can come along. Stay together, right?" Maybe they d get flattened by somebody along the way.

"So, what does it mean, Ritsuko?"

"Well, Hibiki-san, it means that we should have a dead pilot. Rei should never have survived that thermal shock... third degree stigmatic burns. She s fine, no burns at all. She says it hurt, but nothing about the heat."

"Is she all right?"

"Yes, we sent her home. No physical problems, that we could see anyway. The Eva s going to need some work, though. Most of the armor will have to be replaced; it s too badly damaged to repair correctly."

"Then we need to get another Eva. Fuyutsuki?"

"Yes?"

"What s the status on Unit 02?"

"Ready at the German facility. We could ship it here in eight days."

"And its pilot?"

"Soryu s ready as well."

"Give the order. What about the other thing, Ritsuko?"

"I have no ideas. You should ask him. I can tell you that he should NOT have been able to do what he did. That much energy..."

"Yes. What happened to your face, Ritsuko?"

"Infiltrator, I m guessing."

"Seele making a move, eh? Get internal security on it."

"Tendo Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. Cool, right, Kensuke?"

Well, it was fairly cool. Fortunately, he had some train passes he had gotten from the Admiral that morning, and they hadn t had to walk all that way. He hadn t been successful in finding out what that energy blast had been, either. "Classified", his butt. Nice dojo, though.

A young woman with brown hair greeted them at the door. "Oh, hello Ryoga! And Rei. We just finished with breakfast, Ranma s out in back practicing with his father."

Ryoga turned to go around the house. "Thanks, Kasumi."

Around the corner, Kensuke spotted a nice pond, garden style. It was surrounded by rocks. A girl, red-haired, was jumping around on the rocks. She was... fighting... a panda? Well, they were jumping at each other a lot, but everything was going too fast for him to see any attacks. He grabbed his camcorder and started shooting. "Cool."

"Hey, she s cute, Kensuke." Rei started laughing. Heck, she was going to choke if she kept laughing like that. Touji looked indignant. "Well, she is."

The girl spotted them, stopped. The panda hadn t stopped, though. With a single kick, it launched the girl into the middle of the pond. She came out, sputtering. "Hey, cool it Dad, we ve got company."

Ryoga motioned upwards. "We ve gotta talk, Ranma."

"Fine by me." She jumped. Jumped on the roof! Kensuke checked the cap on his camera, making sure it was off. That was VERY cool. And now Ryoga was jumping up on the roof. With his pack!

"Hey, Touji, can you jump like that?"

"I m seriously considering it. Do you think those two, are..." Touji extended his last finger, made a gesture. "Quit laughing like that, Rei. It s weird."

Rei wheezed a couple of times. "Ha ha. Heh. Huh. His..." She repeated Touji s gesture. "That s girlfriend, right?" The two nodded. Immediately she started laughing again.

"Rei, cut it out, you ll hurt yourself." He d never SEEN Rei laugh before. Now, it was like it was all coming out at once.

"Okay, okay. I ll be back." Now REI jumped up on the roof.

"Hey, Touji, you don t suppose that it s only us that can t do that, do you?"

"I can assure you that not everybody can do that." This came from a brown-haired girl, standing on the porch and watching them. She was laughing a little, too. "Who are you two?"

"They call me Touji Suzuhara, ma am." Of course, he d take the opportunity to hit on her...

"My name s Kensuke Aida."

She stared at him. "YOU RE the Ensign?"

How did she know his screen name? "Yeah, I m the Ensign. Who wants to know?"

"Be more polite, son. You re speaking with Miss Tendo." THAT was Miss Tendo? The biggest underground arms dealer in Tokyo-3? "How did you track me down?"

Ranma settled down on the roof. It was annoying, having Ryoga always showing up. Well, no, actually it was kind of nice, since they weren t trying to kill each other lately. And he hadn t done his pig trick with Akane for a while. Of course, he couldn t, not with that Rei here watching.

Ryoga slumped down. He rummaged in his pack for a second, grabbed a thermos. "Hot water, man?"

Ranma looked directly at Rei. "You thinking this morning, Ryoga?"

Ryoga glanced at her, shook his head. "She knows already, Ranma. The whole thing. And she saved my butt last night." Ryoga emptied the contents of the thermos over Ranma s head.

Well, that was better. Ranma really preferred being male, if he had the option. "Thanks. What are you doing as a pilot? Did somebody go crazy?"

"Well, remember how I told you about my dad?"

"What, the good-for-nothing jerk that ran off from you and your mom?" Rei frowned. "Yeah, I remember you telling me about the putz." Now she was really frowning. "Why bring the dork up now?"

Rei s arm flashed out... well, sort of flashed. He could see it coming. It was a slap, all right. Should he throw her in the pond? Nah, embarrassing, especially if she had her own Jusenkyo curse. He could just catch her arm, twist it around, and break the elbow... no, that was no good either, she WAS just a girl. Plus, he had seen her fight, she wasn t very skilled. Whoops, here it comes, better just catch the thing. "Look, I get enough of that already around here. Don t you start anything."

Rei tore her arm loose. "Don t talk about Gendo-san like that, then!"

"Hey, yeah, cool off, Ranma. Turns out he just wandered off, you know?"

"Yeah, didn t we have this conversation last time?"

"Oh, right. Well, he recruited me for this whole thing. I m an Evangelion pilot now."

Well, duh. "That would explain you being in the robot. Evangelion?"

Ryoga scratched the back of his head. "Well, I don t know why they call it that. Rei?"

She stopped glaring at Ranma. "No, it sounds biblical, though."

Ranma didn t know ANYTHING about anything biblical. Heck, Christmas was a mystery. "Well, anyway, what were you thinking, shooting off like that? You could have killed somebody. Who s the idiot who gave you a gun in the first place?"

"Idiot s name is Misato. She s operations commander at NERV."

Misato. No way, no fragging way. Had to be a coincidence. "Well, it was a good thing that it was in the middle of the night, or you d have crisped us all. Not that I m complaining. I could use a few more days off of class."

"Thought you wanted me to shoot Kuno."

"Him too. Well, what were you thinking?"

"I wasn t." Ryoga pulled his knees up to his chest. "I really could have killed her, Ranma. I really could have."

"Hey, don t go getting maudlin on me, Ryoga." The last thing he wanted to do on his day off was listen to Ryoga moan. "It s okay, man."

"It s not the first time, is it, Ranma? My God. I ve been after her all these years, and I almost kill her every time!"

Huh? "No way, you re just exaggerating." Well, there had been a couple of times, but they weren t Ryoga s fault, really... he just was too stupid to keep track of how strong he was. "Akane can take care of herself, you know that."

"You kidding? How many times has she gotten in trouble in the last year? A dozen? People are always grabbing at her, you know that. Hell," sob, "even me, sometimes. I can t make her happy, not really."

"Look, Ryoga, don t..."

"Damn it, though, she s not happy now." He was really starting the tear works now.

"Hey, Rei, want to give me a hand here?"

She stared blankly. "I don t even know what he s talking about."

Oh yeah, right, he probably wouldn t have told her about Akane. "Look, man..."

"I mean, you re always messing around with all those other fianc es and things. And calling her uncute. She loves you, stupid!"

Ranma slipped, skidded a foot before catching himself. Ryoga, saying THAT? What the hell was he thinking? Did robot piloting make you stupid or something? Not that Ryoga needed the help... what was he thinking?

"Damn it all. She s going to be happy, if I have to die for it." Ryoga grabbed Ranma by the arms. "Set a date, Ranma."

Huh? "Huh?"

"Wedding! Set a date for the wedding!"

"Hey, Ryoga, what re you talking about?" Ranma slapped Ryoga, twice, once on each cheek. Did he even feel it? "I m not getting married to that tomboy!"

"Look, Ranma, I can t give her up if you re just going to throw her over for one of your women. You re going to take care of her for the rest of her life if I have to beat you to a pulp!"

As if that was going to happen. "What brought this on, Ryoga? Are you crazy?" Rei flinched at that. Huh? "You really want me to marry Akane?"

"The whole thing hit me, last night. Right after I had killed the Angel, I thought you all were dead, right? I... it was just disgust. I wanted to die... I remembered how I had acted, and I wanted to die..."

He was serious. What now, Ranma? "This is a bit sudden, man."

"You love her, right, Ranma?" Ryoga looked up. "You DO love her, right, Ranma?" A roof tile crumpled in Ryoga s grip. "Damn you, if you don t love her I ll kill you right now!"

"Hey, hey, calm down, I love her already! Don t go shouting it to everybody." Oh man. He had really said it. Really said it. It was true, too... he really did love her. "All right, you win, Ryoga. I ll get married to her."

That seemed to brighten him up a bit. "You mean it? I don t mean any of this fianc crap, I mean a marriage, husband-and-wife, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it already."

Ryoga looked out at the crushed corpse of the Angel, resting over several blocks of prime real estate downtown. "Oh, man, that hurt. You really will?"

"Yeah." It wasn t such a bad idea, come to think of it. "Three months. I ll marry Akane... in three months."

"ONE month!"

"TWO months, all right? It is MY marriage we re talking about."

"Hey, Ryoga..." Rei shifted a bit. "Do you mind explaining some of this?"

"So, you can get them to me when?"

"Look, Kensuke, it takes time to move explosives. Maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a month."

"The admiral s not going to like that, Tendo-san." Kensuke couldn t believe his luck. She had a finger in EVERYTHING.

"Well, tough cookies. What else?"

"I ve got a few bits to sell. Information."

She thought about that for a second. "What kind of information?"

"NERV kind, you understand?"

"Like you ve got contacts into NERV."

Touji wandered in. "Man, they ve got great stuff in that kitchen. She can really cook!"

"Where did you get to?"

"Got roped into dish duty in exchange for leftovers. Folks aren t ever home, so I didn t have any breakfast handy this morning."

"Get this, Touji. She doesn t think I know anything about NERV."

"Believe him, Tendo-san. This man knows everything about NERV."

"Gentlemen, let s talk business. I ll need a sample of information to know whether or not the rest is worth buying."

This should be easy. "Well, the main robot is called Eva Unit 01. Short for Evangelion. It s tall, and purple, and has a horn."

"You have something I didn t see on the evening news?"

"Yeah, the pilot. Guy s superhuman, he is. He feels no pain, fights like a devil. Nearly took Touji s shoulder off, and he wasn t even trying."

"Hey, don t tell her that!"

"You ticked him off, stupid. Rumor has it that he s the commander s kid, got the job because of that. Interesting thing is, he has no sense of direction. Gets lost," snap, "like that."

"You make him sound like Ryoga Hibiki or something."

Huh? How the hell did she know? No, wait, she DIDN T know. "Well, you convinced I have the information?"

"Yeah, this could be valuable. I lost a lot of money last night on the fight."

Touji coughed. "You mean you bet against Eva?"

"Yeah, well, I couldn t have known about that special attack move it had, now could I? That was pretty impressive. What s that called?"

Well, not like Kensuke knew. Bluff time. "Hey, hey, that s quite enough for a sample." He tilted his glasses. That should glint them.

She sighed. "You re right, I m interested. Tell you what... if you can get answers to a list of questions, I ll eat the cost on that shipment for the Admiral. How s that sound?" She batted her eyes.

"Sounds good. E-mail me the list, you know where."

"Nice doing business with you," smile, "Ensign."

They stepped out onto the porch. "I thought only..."

Kensuke elbowed Touji in the ribs, hard. "I use it as my Internet handle, too."

Thump Thump tump

"Well, Ranma, you guys finished?"

"Yeah, Nabiki... there s the matter of that five thousand yen you owe me, right?"

"Look, I said I d pay everybody. Who knew you d all bet on the Eva?"

Look at Ryoga, puffing his chest out like that. It wouldn t be any good if Nabiki guessed that he was a pilot on her own. He was wiping his eyes with his bandana. No, he was still wearing his bandana. Who in the world carried a yellow hankie?

Nabiki went back inside. Ryoga turned, motioned to Ranma. "Look, man, I m sorry about doing it like that. I just want her to be happy."

"Damn." Whatever had gotten into Ryoga, what he was doing had to hurt. "She ll be happy. GOD damn." Ranma couldn t shake the feeling that something had gone fundamentally wrong with the universe.

Ryoga s tall friend piped up. "Hey, where d the cute girl go?" He withered under Ranma s supreme glare of death... a little. "And how come you re dressed the same as she was?"

The other one tilted his head a little; sunlight glinted off his glasses. "I understand a few things now, Tendo-san. A few of your... quirks, maybe."

Nabiki wasn t ruffled in the least. "The home environment can really shape you, can t it." It was not a question.

Rei coughed a bit. "Um, Ryoga, what did you have planned for lunch?"

"Well, I was thinking of moo..." Of course Ryoga had planned to mooch off of Kasumi. Ordinarily, this would start a fight. Ranma was in too much shock to want to start it up (again) with Ryoga... best just to derail that train at the station. "Yeah, Ryoga, stay for lunch. Akane s cooking today, you know." Was it possible for Rei to go even MORE pale? Evidently so.

"No, no, wouldn t want to impose... besides, I m not sure... I could face her right now. You understand, right Ranma?"

"Yeah, I think so." This wasn t the same Ryoga that had hung around for two years. A month of piloting had changed him, he wasn t what Ranma considered to be HIM anymore... and the change was good. "Look, then, could you do me a favor? You tell Ukyou. I personally don t care what Shampoo and her grandmother think, when they find out, but Ukyou doesn t deserve that."

"She ll kill me."

"She couldn t if she tried. You re," and it was going to really hurt to say this... "just about as good as I am, right?" Flattery will get you everywhere.

"Good point." Ryoga chuckled. "She ll hit me, though. Tell you what. Favor for favor. Could you mind these two while Rei and I go eat? They re not bad people, but they don t think like us."

"What, and Rei thinks like you?"

"No, I do not." Rei wasn t smiling at that. Well, maybe a trace.

"Sure, then, I don t think Nabiki was done with the one anyway."

"Well, then, let s go. Rei?"

She shrugged. "Yes, I remember the way." The two took off.

Ryoga was worried. Sure, Ukyou didn t deserve to be left in the dark, cut off. But to be the person to tell her, though, it was a suicide mission. Not for him, though. He couldn t afford to die here. Heck, he really couldn t afford to get beat up, anymore. Too much riding on him, maybe.

"Rei, don t sit next to me in there." With any luck, she d miss most of the fallout from the upcoming encounter. "When she starts, GET OUT. She ll be serious, and I m not going to hold back. Likely, we ll take down the building." If not the block.

"Understood." This was Rei as he had first met her... cold, showing no emotions. What emotions did she have to show? Well, humor, now. Anger, sometimes. Boredom? Displeasure? Fear? He d never seen those. A dispassionate mask for all, assuming she even felt them.

"Eat fast, too. No sense in wasting good okonomiyaki."

"What do you mean?"

"Dad taught me not to waste food."

"Right." That would explain it enough for her. She was close to Gendo, a lot closer than he was. Of course, he had seen his father what, three, four times in the last ten years? Even if they were all in the last month. He reminded himself to ask her about that, afterward.

He slid open the door to Ucchan s. The place could seat over a hundred, if they crammed in tight; now, only two or three people finished up scraps of brunch. Ukyou, of course, was behind the counter. Her spatula was on the wall behind her. The big one, that is.

He parked himself on a corner stool (maximum mobility; more options for the initial evasion) and motioned Rei to sit two seats down, closer to the door than he (might as well give her a head start). She complied, sitting down. Too tense, damn it! Ukyou was no slouch at martial arts, she d notice that kind of tension in a second, he wouldn t get a chance to explain.

Ukyou shifted over between them. Looked at Ryoga, looked at Rei. Something changed in her face... she HAD noticed. Oh, damn it all anyway. She leaned over, murmured, "So, everything not going well, is it, Ryoga?"

What could that have meant? Wait a minute. He felt his battle senses moving, the preternatural awareness that let him keep up in battle with foes that moved faster than he could see... and the pieces fell together. Rei, sitting too far from him, stiff-backed. His own tension, his outer bandana with tear-streaks, his eyes probably still a bit red. She couldn t think that he and REI? She did.

"Ukyou, what do you have for liquor?" Not that it would affect him, but it d get the point across. "Strong liquor."

"Look, sugar, you re underage and I ve got no license to sell alcohol here."

"So don t sell it, just pour. Whatever you ve got. One for yourself, too."

She ducked behind the bar, came up with a bottle of sake. Two glasses and a little pouring later, and he had his fists wrapped around the hot cup. "You mind telling me what this is about?"

"Yeah, I need to make a toast."

"So?"

"To a wedding."

The realization hit Ukyou all at once. She stepped back, staring, as Ryoga sipped his drink. It burned all the way down. "No." She d guessed right. "You don t mean it." She hopped over the bar, sat down on the stool in between the two. "It can t be... that."

"It is." All he needed to say, really.

"Then what re you doing here, stupid? We ve got to go stop them! Akane, remember?"

"Akane..." He blinked, twice, hard. His vision focused. "I will make Akane happy... I ll keep her safe. But not that way."

"You mean..." she glanced at Rei, turned back to him, "you gave her up for HER?"

"No, not for her. I gave up Akane for Akane s sake. Drink up, a toast to the wedding."

"You ve given up." She was steadier now. Her hands didn t shake as she sipped her own sake. "You really gave up, didn t you? How? I always figured you d chase her until you died. How can you just give up like that?"

He took another sip. A gulp, really. Maybe he was more affected by alcohol than he thought. "Last night, I almost killed her. And Ranma. You too, by the way. I could have killed her, but I wasn t thinking. I could have killed her!"

"You re talking nonsense, you idiot. What do you mean, almost killed her? And Ranma? And ME-? I think I would have remembered that, don t you?"

"Why are you open today, this early, Ukyou?"

"Because the school s closed. They ve got to..." She paused, took another sip. "repair the damage..." Another sip. "caused by..." She drained the glass. "You re not serious."

He looked at her. He could see her flinch at his gaze. No wonder, really. If he looked half as cold as he felt, right then... "Yes."

She turned around, looked at Rei. "Do you know what he s talking about? There s no way it s possible. The school was hit by the ROBOT, right?"

"It s not a robot, exactly. Call it Eva."

"Robot, Eva, whatever. Rei?"

Rei looked at Ryoga. He nodded, and she said, "Hibiki-kun is the designated pilot of Eva Unit 01."

Too much, too fast. Ukyou poured herself another drink... her hands were shaking this time. "So you did that. I won t ask why." She took a slug. "And now, you come in, and you ve given up. And they re getting married." Another slug. "I can t let it happen... help me stop it, Ryoga. I can t let it happen."

"No, Ukyou." He set down his glass. "Nobody s stopping the wedding. They re going to get married. Akane needs it, needs it more than she needs me." He could feel the pain, as bad as in the Eva s cockpit. "I can t let you stop the wedding."

"And just WHY is that?" She was getting angry. Now, before she started swinging...

"Because I agreed to be the best man." He put on a smile, it must be a weak one at this point, but it didn t matter because she d see it and start laughing, and they could talk the whole thing out...

"Best man?" Or not. "BEST MAN! Ryoga, you JACKASS! How could you?" She vaulted the bar, grabbed the assault spatula in one smooth motion. "How can you sit there and say that! I won t let it happen!"

"You don t have a choice." He grabbed the outer headband, the one still warm with his tears, and began a slow, whirling motion. "I can t let you stop it. It has to happen. She has to be happy, damn it! I can t be there for her," and here, he ducked his head, blinking away the tears, "I ll never be there for her, but I will make SURE that she s happy!"

Ukyou raised the spatula. "Ryoga, I m not going to give up because you tell me to."

"I don t want to hurt you." But he would, he thought. For this... he would indeed hurt her.

"If you try to stop me, Ryoga, I ll kill you." There was no rage in Ukyou s voice, only a cold conviction.

"No."

Hey, that HADN T been him, answering. Both Ryoga and Ukyou turned to look at Rei. "I won t let you hurt Ryoga."

Ukyou smiled to herself. It was a very thin, very grim smile. "Like he just said, sister, you don t get the choice." She had NEVER expected to have to fight Ryoga over this. Hell, the jackass should be helping her, not trying to stop her. He was serious, though.

And dangerous. She could see the pain on his face, but no desperation. He really, truly, had given her up. That was the scary part, of course. Without Akane, what did Ryoga have to live for? If he didn t have anything to live for... his depression would be unmatched. Even her strongest defenses really weren t up to fighting him when he was in a good mood...

He raised his free hand, brought back the bandana with the other. Shifting automatically, she moved the spatula to cover her. "You can t do it, you know." Direct physical combat would be suicide... but Ryoga was generally vulnerable to manipulation. "Come on. Hit a girl? The great Ryoga Hibiki, fight a girl? No way." She registered the shock on his face, as he realized what he was about to do. "See? I m right, aren t I? I could just go over and cut you down, and you wouldn t even lift a finger."

His head came back up. He was looking at something... his eyeballs went wide. Surprise. With the speed given her by well-honed battle reflexes, she started her attack sequence, determined to gain the opportunity. She couldn t let him stop her. His hand went back, the bandana whirling with force now. His mouth opened... a "no!" forming. Forward. She smoothly rotated the haft to block the projectile...

It wasn t aimed at her. To her right. Right? Nothing there but... oh damn oh damn concentrated so much on Ryoga didn t remember she had a gun oh damn duck duck duck PAIN. She heard the report, felt the bullet tear a crease in her scalp. Turn, look. Rei, standing, hand empty. Empty? Gun flying, barrel wrapped in yellow. Of course, that bullet would have killed her, she wasn t THAT fast, not like Ranma. She brought her spatula around, aimed for the temple. One strike, before she could go for the gun.

Ryoga was there first, grabbing Rei s wrists. He didn t seem to notice as the spatula struck his skull, bounced off. His eyes were wide open, white around the iris. "What... what the hell was that, Rei?"

"She tried to kill you. I won t let that happen."

Ukyou looked, considered the new dent in her spatula, and decided to wait it out.

"No no NO! Damn it, you don t just SHOOT people, Rei! She could have been KILLED!" Same words as earlier, but no self-pity, this time. Only fear, and shock.

"That s the idea, Hibiki-kun. She said that she d kill you." Rei s face was cold, showing no emotion.

"That s NOT the idea! Just because somebody says they ll kill you doesn t mean they ll kill you! Hell, I must have told Ranma I d kill him what, a hundred times? Two hundred? You can t just shoot somebody around here just because they say they ll kill you."

"Why not?"

"It s not fair, that s why, damn it. You can t defend against that."

"Plus, nobody here can afford the doctor bills." The two turned to stare at her. What, had they forgotten she was here? "Tofu, he s great and all, but I don t think he can take out bullets."

Ryoga whirled on her. "Look, this whole thing is all your fault. Drop that thing RIGHT NOW."

"Or what, you jackass?"

"Or I ll let go of Rei, and we ll finish the job, damn it. Enough already! I don t want to fight you."

Well... he had a point... and he did just save her life, sort of. "All right." She set the spatula down on the counter, sat down next to it. "We ll talk."

"Right." Ryoga turned to Rei. "Pick that thing up before it hurts someone. What the hell are you doing carrying around a gun, Rei?"

"Gendo-san gave it to me. He told me I might need it."

"NEED it? To what, shoot somebody?"

Obviously, Rei had spent a very small portion of her life being yelled at by berserkers. "Wait, Ryoga, back off a bit. That s what a gun is for, right?" Ukyou turned to Rei. "Not that I appreciate being shot at, now."

Rei retrieved the gun, fiddled with something on the barrel, stuck it back under her vest. "He can t die. We don t have another pilot for Eva 01. If you try to hurt him, I have to kill you."

So, the pilot thing wasn t just a cheap diversion or something like that. "No pilot? How did HE get to be a pilot?" The idea was very funny, really. Ryoga couldn t navigate his way out of a paper bag. She almost chuckled. "All right, I m not trying to kill him now, drop it, OK?"

"Understood." Rei sat back down, waited. "No beef on mine, please."

"Huh?"

"Lunch, right?"

She had no middle gears, either. "Just a minute." She turned to Ryoga. "I still don t want them to get married, you know. How come SHE rates? I m his fianc e too."

"Aargh." He ducked his head again. "I m not happy about the idea myself. But... she loves him, and I love her, and this is the only thing I can do to make her happy. That, and protect her. From you. From the Angels. From him, if it comes to that."

Her scalp stung like hell. "Why a wedding, though? She could change her mind, right? So could he. Just because you gave up on her, it means that nobody gets a chance at him? Just like that, it s over?"

"Yeah, just like that." He nodded. "I couldn t give her up if she wasn t going to be happy, I d never forgive myself. But I HAD to give her up, you see? So, this is the only way. You re the same way, right? He can t be happy if she s not happy. He s the same as me."

What was he doing looking at her like that? He reached up, grabbed a headband. What, did he always wear three of them? "Give me your head, Ukyou, you re bleeding." He shot a nasty look at Rei.

"Sorry." No emotion in the voice.

He wrapped the bandana around the wound (just over the right ear, and not deep... no stitches, Ryoga said) and tied it off. "It ll heal up with time." He looked at her again. "Give it some time."

She drew back a little. "Hey, why do you care about this? How come Ranma didn t come to tell me?"

"He..." Ryoga tensed a bit. "He didn t want to hurt you. He likes you, some. Not love..." A twin pain to her head, this one inside. "But he likes you a lot. He didn t want to hurt you."

"What about you, then? You didn t mind doing his dirty work?" That came out sounding more bitter than she had meant it to.

"No. I didn t want to hurt you either." He grinned, the first time he had really smiled since he had come inside. (She wasn t going to count that pathetic excuse for a smile earlier.) "I m sure Rei didn t want to."

"I don t want to. I just had to."

"And that s it, isn t it, Ukyou? I m here, because I have to."

"Look, guys, this is a bit..." She blinked back a tear of her own. "I m sorry, but could you leave me alone for a while? I need to... think about this some."

Ryoga stood, grabbed his pack from by the door. "Sure, I ll put out the "closed" sign for you. Come on, Rei."

"Well, now what do we do about lunch, Hibiki-kun?" That whole thing had been awkward, Rei thought. Ranma really should have done it himself, and left Ryoga out of it.

"Damn it, Rei, she would have fed us if you hadn t SHOT her."

"She was trying to kill you!" All her hard work, keeping him alive, and he has to do things like this.

"Well, at least somebody cares."

Fortunately, he wasn t looking at her right then, lost in his own approximation of misery. He didn t notice her blush.

End of part six

Flames, comments, questions to akent 


	7. Chapter 7

Misato flung the door open, threw a long, wrapped package into the entry. If she had to work ONE MORE DAY with that impossible man Gendo Hibiki, she would go insane. "Ryoga-kun? I m home..." She removed her shoes and wandered into the kitchen. Nothing moving, nothing lying around. One good thing about having the son of that devil living at her house, he was good at doing the dishes. It didn t look like he d had lunch, however. She grabbed a six-pack from the fridge.

She stuck her head into the living room, but nobody was there, either. The television was off. In one corner, she saw Ryoga s pack, lying on its side... and his umbrella, buried halfway into the wall. What did he think he was doing? House repairs cost a lot. She walked over to it, gave an experimental tug. It wasn t going anywhere, not without heavy lift equipment or Ryoga s intervention.

While she had learned that Ryoga was the sort of man that caused incidental property destruction (the remains of that stairwell at NERV were a sight to see, she never should have tripped him there), he wasn t one to leave his stuff lying around. She walked down the hall. One room was empty, save for a couple of empty boxes and such. The other was Ryoga s room.

She paused at the door, listened before knocking. There was a faint sound, like a hammer striking a nail, repeated every few seconds. She thought for a bit, then knocked. "Ryoga-kun? You in there?"

"Go away!"

Well, that decided it. He was depressed about something. She could either talk him out of it or watch as her department was destroyed piece by piece. "I m coming in." Always a good idea to give warning, and besides, if he threw something, it would really hurt.

She cracked the door, saw no flying pillows or books, opened it the rest of the way. Ryoga was there, sitting on his bed. One hand was bruised, red and raw; the other held what looked like a chunk of steel railing, with a stylized fist impression on one side. He had been crying, too. Red eyes, bleary, runny nose, the whole nine yards.

"You want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Well, that doesn t matter, you need to talk about it. What happened?"

He leaned back, adjusted the pillow behind him. "Today... today was the worst day in a long, long stretch of worst days of my life."

"Bad class day, huh?"

He twitched an eyebrow. "That reminds me. I m going to class from now on. It s not safe not to."

Well, he had cut class. Strike one, but the lecture could wait. "Come on, you can tell me."

"You ve got to promise not to laugh at me."

"I promise, already. Go on."

Sigh. "Remember how I told you about that friend of mine?"

She nodded. "What, the one with the fianc es and everything?"

"Yeah, that one. He s getting married." He coughed. "He s marrying Akane."

Everything made a little more sense after that. "She s special to you, huh?"

"Special? She s EVERYTHING to me. I wake up in the morning for her. I fight for her. I train for her. I think of her, every day, every moment. When I m in Eva, it s to protect HER. I would do anything for her, die, kill, it doesn t matter."

"We don t have to worry about you killing your friend, then, do we?"

He giggled at that, not a laughing giggle, but the giggle of somebody who s so close to the edge that they can see the fall. "No, it s not his fault. Nobody s fault, really. Mine. It was my idea. The marriage, my idea. I told him to marry Akane, and he said okay."

"Isn t that a bit weird?"

"You ve never met those two. He s not the kind of guy to show his feelings... and she s violent. They fight all the time, but he loves her. And Akane loves him."

"So you gave up."

"Yeah." Another mad giggle. "Not because of that, though. It had never been enough to stop me before, that. I fought with my friend over her. I d lose, most of the time. He s GOOD." He d have to be, to take down Ryoga. Ryoga was barely human himself, in that respect. "But now, with all this... I can t keep her, not keep her and make her happy."

"Why not?" She sat down on his chair.

"I... I ve loved her for so long, what, two years? And she doesn t care for me, not really, it s just pity, that s all. Maybe I m her friend, a little. And... there s another reason." He pulled his knees up to his chest. "You don t get to hear this one. Nobody does. She doesn t know, but if she did, she d want to kill me. God, she gets so angry sometimes."

"I m not sure I follow this. You love her, she doesn t love you, so to win her heart you go up to her fianc and tell them to get married?"

"Not win her heart. That s... over now, I can t win, I can t even afford to try anymore. But, I can make sure she s happy, damn it. She will be happy. With him." He was crying again, not much, but crying. "I don t even dare see her. I could have killed her, don t you see? So many times, and I didn t see. Once, yesterday, and now I know." He was glowing, now, faint green.

Glowing, faint green?!

Just like the Evangelion yesterday. Misato did some quick mental gymnastics. "You want to talk about yesterday? What happened, with the Angel?"

"That? Side effect, I don t know. I fired, and the shot..." sniffle, "twisted, and it hit... it hit her school. I went a little crazy then, I didn t know she wasn t there, I thought she was dead, and then Rei, she gets hit, she gets hit in front of me. And then, it s Rei on the ground, and Akane dead, and all of my friends, and the gun doesn t fire. Something... went out of me then."

"Yeah, we saw it. Pretty damn impressive."

He looked up. "Oh, that. No, that s different. You see?" He held up his arm, turned it, patterning his face with a pattern of glowing shadows. "That s ki, the power of concentration. Normally, a fight brings it out, but with me... depression can do the same thing. The ki blast is called the Shishi Hokodan. You let go, and it works. No telling why it worked, why it was that big, that s a HELL of a lot bigger than I thought I could do."

Yeah, it was big. It had gone through the Angel s AT field like butter. That meant what, one hundred eighty megawatts? More? "And you glow for a while afterward, then? Like right now?"

"No, it goes away."

"Then what was the glow?"

"I wasn t done... there s another part to it. A complete version of the same technique. It calls down... energy from the sky, I don t know why it works. It s a lot more powerful, it takes a second to go off. Sometimes a bit more."

Misato breathed deeply. More powerful? A lot? And down from the sky. That s why he was so upset last night... what if he had finished? It would have killed them all.

He continued. "I just keep thinking, I could have killed Akane. Even if she wasn t in the school... Nerima s not that far from where I was, right then. If the big one was as much bigger... there wouldn t have been anything left. I could have killed her because I was upset because I thought that I had killed her!" He wiped his nose with a spare bandana. "Stupid, right? I couldn t help it, that was the scary part, I couldn t help it.

"So I went to their house today, and I told him, get married. I couldn t give her up if he didn t promise to take care of her. And she ll be happy." He dropped back, eyes staring at the ceiling. "Damn it all, but she ll be happy."

"So, there s no hope, for you and... Akane?"

He turned, looked at Misato. "No, damn it, that s the point! I can t hope, it s too dangerous, if I keep loving her, I ll kill her. I can t control it, not enough. I can t make her happy if I kill her because I m too stupid."

She understood, sort of. Not ever the kind of problem that she had faced, though. It was love, though. He loved her enough to stop loving her. Romantic, really, except that it was horrible and SHE had forced him to go through it, her and the Eva. "I m sorry, Ryoga. I really am."

"You didn t do it. It was coming, it would have happened, except that now, I saw it. I saw it in time and now it ll be okay. Everything will be okay." He grimaced. "Damn, but it hurts this way."

She stood up, left two beers on the chair. "In case you get thirsty." On her way to the door, she remembered another detail from last night. "That girl, Akane, she came last night, didn t she? She snapped you out of it?"

Well, he now looked puzzled instead of maniacally depressed. "Huh? NO! That wasn t Akane. That was just Ranma..."

Ranma. Well, that was one hell of a coincidence, that Ryoga would know a girl named Ranma. "Oh, don t worry about it. I ll be out here when you feel like talking some more."

"Thanks, Misato. Thanks..." He rolled over, stared at the far wall. She slid the door shut and left him to his misery.

Paradise Lost, part 7 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Gainax or Rumiko Takahashi -  
Ryoga staggered out of his room. He d cried all day... and now, he felt better. The world was still a dark and horrible place created specifically to subject him to every kind of hell that could be imagined, of course. But at least he was noble about the whole thing.

*[Yeah, kid. You know it s working when you feel like hell, eh?]*

Ain t that the truth. He d get over it, right?

*[Right, over it. Before you know it, even. Just wanted to let you know that we re proud of you, kid.]*

Oh, great. No sooner did he get everything under some semblance of control, than he started hearing voices in his head. And talking to them, and having them answer. Maybe he had gone crazy. He listened, but the voice did not return.

He moved into the living room, found the couch. Misato was in the other chair, with enough empties to last her the night. "Hey, Misato?"

"How you doing, Ryoga-kun?" She sounded concerned. At least he had somebody that cared about him.

"Better, some. Who gave Rei that gun?"

That got her attention. "What do you mean, gun? Rei s got a gun?"

"Yeah, I was meaning to tell you." He popped the tab on his second beer. "The other thing that happened today. That friend of mine, remember? He s got three other fianc es. One of them, she s a jerk, always trying to trick him and other stuff. Some kind of obscure legal thing, that s why she wants to marry him. The other one, though... she s nice, just a little odd."

"Yeah?"

"I went over there, with Rei, I was going to tell her what happened. I did tell her... she got mad, we were going to fight, let her get it out of her system like I got it out of mine..."

"Yeah?"

"And Rei almost put a bullet in her brain. I saw it coming, moved the gun. It still hit her, but just a scratch. She almost killed her. Ukyou. She s a friend, almost... even tried to help me out with Akane, sometimes. And she almost died too."

"Why did Rei shoot her?" Misato couldn t even picture Rei getting mad enough to shoot somebody.

"I don t know, really. Maybe it s the whole protection thing. Last night, today, she s trying to keep me alive."

"Well, that s a good thing, right?"

"Yeah, unless somebody gets shot."

"Good point. I ll talk to her about it."

That was good. "Don t yell at her about it, though. I don t think she knows she s not supposed to shoot anybody."

"We ll fix that."

"Well, okay. Look, I need some sleep, wake me up tomorrow, all right?"

"Wait a second." She shifted a bit. "You said three fianc es."

Oh, right, Kodachi. "Doesn t matter now. Somebody killed the other one. Last week." Yeah, somebody. Somebody who pilots a purple Evangelion, why don t you say, Ryoga? If only he could understand how the hell THAT had happened. "She was a demon. Her brother? He s happier now. If they caught who did it, he d THANK them."

"Oh, okay."

Ritsuko downed another cup of coffee. She still hadn t slept, not since she d awakened from that kick last night. Too much to do, too much to look at. Status reports. After-action reports. Sync patterns. Rei s patterns. Ryoga s patterns. That one really odd part on Ryoga s pattern, when he killed the Angel. Damage reports. A spectral reading of the blast. Dead Angel analysis. She could hear the dying screams of old-growth forests in the piles on her desk.

At least Misato had it worse... Ritsuko didn t have to talk to all of those people who had houses under the last Angel s crash site. That was a lot of property. Those gentlemen from the high school custodial department, though, they were miracle workers. It was almost if they were used to pouring concrete and fixing damage around the clock. She toyed with the idea of drafting them into the Evangelion effort, reconsidered. At the beginning, sure, but now the need for secrecy outweighed other concerns.

She looked at the damage report for Unit 01. Abrasions around the hands. Hand armor, melted, palm side, extreme condition exposure pattern. Same on chest. Lots of little damages, too... hydraulic systems with decomposed fluids. Odd things, but overall, not too bad.

Unit 00 was in worse shape. Most of the external armor was gone, for good. It would have had to come off, anyway, but it could have waited some more. It also had lost a couple of armor sections completely, including the one over the pilot s entry plug. She would really have to talk to Ryoga about the proper procedure for clearing a downed pilot. The thermal shock must have been massive... but Rei was alive. Come to think of it, the organic components of Unit 00 were in pretty good shape too, considering their parboiling. Good living paying back, she suspected.

Here was a good one... somebody picked up a radiation analysis of whatever that thing that Hibiki-kun had pulled off. Not EM energy... not free ions... not anything familiar, really. She filed it away. Have to look at that one later on, she supposed.

And then there was this conference to go to tomorrow. Those idiots. As if anything could replace the Eva at this point. Oh well, she d taken care of that four days ago, she d only have to attend. Misato would have to come too, of course.

Then again, if she was attending, no reason to stay up too late the night before. NERV did have to watch its public image, after all. She closed down her terminal and left the office, headed for the parking garage.

"Good morning, Hibiki-kun!" The two peeked their heads around the corner. "Later, Katsuragi-san!" Kensuke grinned. Even if he wasn t fanatically devoted to seeing Misato on a regular basis, the whole stereo effect was still pretty cool.

"She left already, guys." Ryoga looked like hell. Of course, after taking off like that yesterday, he deserved to... maybe guilt had kept him awake. "Dressed up and everything, some sort of conference thing. She won t be back until tonight."

"A conference? She s just so COOL!"

"Touji, give it a rest, all right? Don t sweat yesterday, Ryoga." He really didn t have anything to apologize for. To think that he knew Nabiki Tendo! Kensuke had finished more business with her yesterday than he could normally have done in a month, if he could have convinced her to pay attention to him, and with better prices too. Of course, she had insisted on delivering some of the merchandise herself, which only made sense. After all, it pays to know where your customers live when you deliver guns and explosives.

"I m okay." Ryoga took a deep breath, shrugged on his pack. "Let s go. Hey, where s Rei?"

"She s... here she comes."

"Good morning, Hibiki-kun."

"Morning..." He started walking towards the stairwell. "You re not going to shoot anyone today, right?" What did he mean by that?

"I still don t understand why..."

"TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, OKAY?"

"Fine." Now what did all of that mean? Kensuke frowned, concentrated... Rei had a gun. USP, 9mm, shoulder holster, under the left arm. From her balance, she had two clips under the right. He smiled, enjoying the discovery. Life just kept getting better around these two.

Ranma ran along the top of the fence. Last night had been good; for once, Akane was willing to listen to his (Ryoga s) idea, and she liked it, for some reason he d never know. They d told the family later, and then the nightmare started.

He d never known how awful an encouraging father could be in this kind of situation. He d almost been tossed, physically, into Akane s room to spend the night. That would have to wait for later, they d decided. All in all, though, it was worth having done. And finally, he could relax about the whole fianc e thing for good. Only thing he needed now was a cup of water from a certain spring...

And some breakfast. Just because he was going to marry her didn t mean he had to eat her cooking every day, thank God. Somebody needed to teach her to make edible food, one of these days. Breakfast, breakfast, there. Ucchan s. Hey, didn t Ryoga go tell her about the wedding? He hoped so, he felt more like food than fighting.

Three jumps took him across rooftops, another set him down in front of the door. The sign said "closed", but that never applied to him, she said. Maybe that had changed, now. Hope not. She was still a good friend. He opened the door.

Ukyou was sitting behind the counter, her head down, sleeping. Funny, normally she was up way before he was, and she didn t sleep there anyway. Her hair was tied back from her face with its normal bow... no. That bow would have been white, and not worn like a headband. This one was, of all things, yellow. With black specks. Heck, it was one of Ryoga s bandanas. What the hell did that mean? "Hey, Ukyou, wake up will ya?"

She stirred, sat up, looked at him. The right side of the headband was not yellow and black, just a dull reddish brown. OH. That s what it meant. "Oh, jeez, I didn t mean for him to hit you! You all right?"

"He didn t, Ranma. He just told me... how could you? I wondered, all last night. How? Why? Why now?" She hadn t slept much, not from her eyes. "Why are you marrying Akane?"

This would be embarrassing. He sat down. "Look, it s like this. Ryoga came over yesterday, he was tripping out, the day before must have been rough on him. You saw that thing he did Sunday night, right? You know how depressed he had to be to do that. Well, he came over, and we talked.

"He told me about it, the fear that he d hurt Akane, the pain. He loves her, you know. But... he knows what he is, now. Remember, I told you about that time? When he had that soap, and couldn t turn into a pig, and asked Akane out? He figured that out too, that he could have really hurt her. That s one thing he never wanted, to hurt her.

"He told me that he couldn t give her up, though. She loves me, and this whole mess..." He gestured, encompassing everything. "She wouldn t have been happy with it, either. Then, he got the idea, I could see it on his face, it must have been like tearing his own heart out to say it. He TOLD me, outright, to marry her. And I had to."

"Liar." She was getting angry, now. "You ve never let anybody tell you what to do in your entire life. Why in hell would you start now?"

"It s not like that! No. It wasn t like that. He was right, damn it, for once he was right. I had to say yes... I couldn t have refused, that would have been giving her to Ryoga, and he couldn t let that happen." Deep breath. "Neither could I. I love Akane. I m sorry."

"Sorry? That s all you have to say? Sorry!" She grabbed her spatula off of the counter, got ready to swing.

He d planned on this. "What re you going to do with that, Ukyou? Hit me? You won t win, we ve been through that. You can t hit Akane with it. She s not here, and if you did, Ryoga would really kill you. He wouldn t hold back, either, not for that. You think you can stop him?"

"I tried yesterday. I wouldn t have won, but we didn t get to fight. That girl, Rei, she shot me."

Holy... "Oh my God. Are you OK? Come on, let s go to the hospital, it can t be too bad or the bleeding... is that a smile?" He liked Ukyou, but really didn t understand her at all.

"Good to know you still care." She pointed at the bloody spot on the bandana. "It just scratched me, really. She wasn t aiming for that, though. Ryoga saw it, hit the gun. Saved my life, probably."

"That makes four you owe him and three for everybody else."

"Huh? You re not making any sense, Ranma."

"He told you about the robots, right?"

"You don t believe that, do you?"

Well, he wouldn t have. "I saw him get out of the purple one. Maybe they re two-seaters, I don t know, but he s a robot pilot. And he s killed three of those Angel things so far. AND given us a couple days off of school, don t forget." He tried grinning.

"Well, what do you know. He really is. That explains a little. You think it makes you crazy, piloting robots?"

"He calls it Eva. And Rei, she s a pilot, too. She s quiet, really quiet, you know?"

"Yeah." She stretched, ran her fingers through her hair. "I must look like hell warmed over right now."

"Not that bad, really. I like the new fashion accessory."

She looked up, startled. "Fashion..." Sputter. "Well, after his girlfriend shot me, you think it was the LEAST the jackass could do!"

"You going to be all right?" She d need to get cleaned up, and opened for business.

"I ll live. I haven t given up yet, you know?"

"NO." Damn it, he wasn t going through this again. "It s not going to work. I m going to marry Akane, in a couple of months. You and Shampoo have less chance of breaking it up than Kodachi, at this point. Before... before, I didn t know, I wasn t really sure. Not this sure, anyway. I didn t mind you trying, you re nice, really cute too, but... that was then. Now, you ve got to stop it. You see? It s over, if it had ever started."

"That s cruel, Ranma."

It was. "I don t have a choice. No, I did, and I made it, and it wasn t you. I can be a friend, but that s it. Besides, if Ryoga thought I was being unfaithful, he d break me like a twig. Or take that big thing out after me, probably."

"What if I don t want to be your friend, after that?"

"Then... it ll be a damned shame, Ukyou. I don t have many friends."

He got up, opened the door, jumped for a roof. That was like... it must have been a little of what Ryoga had felt, last night. Damn him and his fool honor and the whole fianc e thing anyway. And doubly damn that damned Genma for making him do that to Ukyou.

She d get over him, somehow. Maybe... maybe he could help her be happy, some other way. Some other guy, maybe? He saw Ukyou, sleeping, with a yellow and black bandana around her temples. An idea came to him. It was so sick, so twisted, that it would probably work. And it would take care of two debts he had piled up.

He still hadn t had breakfast yet.

Rei stepped into the office. It was comforting, a little, the patterns on floor and ceiling familiar. As was the figure behind the desk. "Hibiki-san?"

Gendo looked up from a stack of paper, saw Rei, smiled. "Come in, Rei. What do you need?"

This would be difficult. She hadn t ever had a request to make before... just statements of insufficient this or that, things that HAD to be done. This would be different. "I need to ask a question." There. Good start.

He placed the paper down on his desk, folded his hands under his chin. Another familiar gesture, reassuring. "Go ahead, ask then."

Difficult didn t begin to describe this. How could she tell him... "Where does Ryoga-kun get his money?" There. A neutral question.

"He has a pilot s salary. It makes sense, what with him getting lost. The money makes his life easier and thus he will prefer to pilot Eva rather than leave." He unfolded his hands. "Why do you want to know?"

"I am an Eva pilot." He would see the meaning.

He did. "So." He smiled! Not much of a smile, but he wasn t very good at smiling, not like Misato. "I should have guessed, before now. How much?"

She hadn t planned on success. In fact, she d spent all of her time thinking of various failure scenarios. "I... I don t know."

"Well." Now he was smiling like Misato smiled, with his whole face. "I can t say no, can I? And it makes sense, too... Do you want what he gets?"

"Not necessarily." It didn t matter how much, she just needed what she would need. "I don t know what things cost."

"You had no reason to know, though. What brought this on?" He answered his own question. "Ryoga, keeping track of Ryoga. Of course! You would see how he acts. He told you, or did you guess?"

"He told me, but after I guessed."

"Heh. Well, I can give you what he gets. After all, you are an Eva pilot." That sounded quite suspiciously like one of Ryoga s jokes, but different. "But not all at once. You need a college fund, you know." That had to have been a joke. Since when did Gendo-san tell jokes?

"What are the details?"

"I can give you pocket cash, when you need it." He reached into his desk, grabbed a black leather case, opened it. His hand came out with several bills, all in the thousand or two thousand yen range. "Anything more expensive, you must come and ask me first."

"Understood."

"Do you know how to use money, Rei?"

"It s an exchange medium. Used to procure goods and services."

"That s what it is, not how it s used. Look, let Ryoga handle the money, then. I ll explain it to him." That was interesting. She d never heard somebody say "explain" in that tone of voice. "Be careful not to waste it, and don t tell people you have it."

"Understood." Well, no, but she d follow instructions.

"No you don t, but you ll follow my instructions." Gendo-san always seemed to know what she was thinking. It was an odd and not particularly unpleasant feeling. "That should be all, then. You have a synch test in twenty minutes."

"Yes." She turned to leave. She thought about saying "goodbye", remembered how Ryoga-kun had acted when she had said that, last time. Maybe he d be willing to explain later.

Ryoga stepped out of the men s locker room. He remembered how there had been no partition when he first arrived at NERV. He d changed in the bathroom for a week. Somebody must have noticed... which was scary, when you came down and think about it.

Rei was waiting in the hallway. "Are you going home, Hibiki-kun?"

"Not quite yet. I ve got a couple stops to make, first." His fault, his problem. He d fix it. Yeah. Besides, it was better than eating dinner at home, even if he was the cook.

"Where first?"

"Central Command." Everybody was off-shift right now. Aoba and Hyuuga were out doing whatever they did when they were out. (What? He didn t know.) Misato and Ritsuko were gone, somewhere. Hadn t been much of a test without those two on hand. Except for Maya, the place should be deserted.

Wait, Gendo might be there. Well, no real reason to avoid him, any more. Besides, Ryoga knew he wasn t a bastard, so maybe Gendo would have some ideas to help as well.

Rei called the elevator. "Why shouldn t I have shot her?"

No need to ask what that was about. "You really don t know?"

"No."

Good question, now that he decided to think about it. "She wasn t going to kill me. When I fight somebody, with my fists, with my umbrella, it s real, I m trying to hurt them, but they don t die from it. I beat them up and then stop, or they beat me up and then stop. With a gun, though, it s not like that. You re dead or you missed."

"So, I shouldn t use the gun?" She looked puzzled.

Hard question. This could get them both killed. "If they want to kill you, yes, use it. If they want to kill me, and they re actually doing it, yes. If they re not, don t."

"Then why carry the gun?"

"I don t carry a gun."

"I m supposed to."

Yeah, there was that. Probably a good reason, too. "Just because you have a gun, it doesn t mean you have to shoot somebody, though. If you had just pointed the gun at Ukyou, and not fired, it would have worked too."

"I don t understand."

"She wouldn t know you wouldn t shoot her, right? She would have stopped. Probably. If not, you could... still shoot her."

"I still don t understand."

Neither did he. "Maybe you just have to be brought up that way, I guess. Here. If I tell you that you can shoot somebody, go ahead. If I m not around, you have to judge, but don t kill them if you don t have to."

"Understood."

Hey! "That wasn t an order, Rei."

The elevator reached Central Dogma. The two stepped out, Rei leading, and entered the command center. As expected, only Maya was there, tapping at her terminal. "Wait here, Rei, I m just going to be a minute."

"Hey, Ryoga-kun! Shouldn t you be going home?" My, but she was cheery.

"Not yet." Damn, he couldn t remember her last name. He d just have to go with it. "Maya-san..." Good, not too familiar, she wasn t ticked. "I could use some advice." Ibuki! That was it. Of course, he d already used the first name...

She stopped typing, swiveled her chair around. "I might have some advice. What s wrong?"

"Lots, but that s not what I need the advice for. I ve got a friend. He s getting married... but he s poor, right?"

She nodded. "Weddings are expensive."

"Right. And it s sort of my fault they re getting married now. My friend, though, he d feel bad if I tried to pay for the whole thing. What exactly do you really need for a wedding?"

"A friend." On anybody else, he d have called that look skeptical. "Right. Well, of course, there s a church. Western or local custom?"

"Uh..." Like he knew. "I don t think they care."

"Must be love. We ll go with Western, it s more romantic for modern couples. That means a Western church, maybe. How many people?"

"Two, duh."

"No, dummy! How many people to watch?" She had found that really funny.

"Let me see..." Not counting Akane and Ranma. He d be there. Soun and Genma. Nabiki and Kasumi. If he was there, Rei would be there. Ukyou might come, but maybe not. Tofu would be there, if they could find a way to keep him from going crazy around Kasumi. "Eight."

"Eight?" Maya was shocked. "Just eight? How can it be just eight? The parents are four by themselves."

"Two. Akane s mother died a long time ago. And Ranma, he hasn t seen his mother in ten years, at least."

"How sad! But she ll have to come, anyway. She d never miss her son s wedding."

"Yeah, but I don t know who she is. Or where she d be. Besides, she might try to kill him. Don t ask me why, but he says so."

"It ll work out, weddings do that. Who else, then?"

"Um... two sisters, both older. The oldest one, Kasumi, she s got a friend, Dr. Tofu. There s another friend, but she kind of liked Ranma too, so she might not come. Maybe some school friends, I don t know. Me. Probably Rei could come too, if I m there."

"Yeah, single guys can always bring a date." Oh, God, please say she s joking. Wait. She s grinning. No, now she s laughing. Good, it was a joke. "Who s the bridesmaids?"

"What are bridesmaids?"

"You know, they re the bride s best friends, they help her out. Probably her sisters."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"And the best man?"

"Huh? Me, I guess. What do I do, anyway?"

"You really don t know weddings, Ryoga-kun. The best man gives the ring to the groom during the ceremony."

"Ring?"

"Yes, the wedding ring. You re hopeless, do you know that? It replaces their engagement ring."

"Engagement ring?"

"You mean they don t have an engagement ring already? My God! How long do they want to wait before getting married?"

All right, finally, he knew this one! "Two months."

"TWO MONTHS? Are they crazy?" Well, yes. "There s no way to put together a decent wedding in two months! Well, maybe one or two. But no engagement ring, though, that s rough. Not a good start."

"Hey, I could help him out with that, anyway, right?"

"Just don t let her catch on, if you do."

"It s okay, she ll just assume that he sold his soul to her sister or something. You ve never met Nabiki."

Puzzled look. "All right, but be careful about that. You two will do fine."

"Huh?"

"Please, Ryoga. Two friends getting married and you need advice? Oldest trick in the book. Come on, who s the lucky girl?"

Wait! "No, no, it s really not me!" Great, this was the last thing he needed right now.

"Suuuuure it s not. I believe you." Ah. Sarcasm.

"Not that it matters whether you do or not..."

"And the mom thing? I know your father well enough to know about THAT. You might as well come out and say it."

"Rei, help!"

"Hibiki-kun is telling the truth."

Thank you, Rei. "See? See? It s not me, really."

"Unless she s in on it too. Isn t she a bit young for you, though?"

"Maya, remember RIGHT before Eva went berserk for the first time?"

"Yes, why?"

"I feel just like that, RIGHT NOW."

She chewed on that for a second. "Oh, sorry, I shouldn t have said so much. It is your business, after all. Just be careful... Hibiki-san would kill you."

"Aaaargh!" He jumped to the door. Why was she staring like that? It was only twenty feet, and he had gone horizontal, not up. "Come on, Rei."

Well, that was certainly cute. Maya could swear she d seen Rei developing some kind of personality over the last few days... she d ask more questions, even grin every so often. And she had understood a joke, laughed at it. It had scared Maya enough to make her drop the subject, then.

And Ryoga... well, he was rough around the edges, and much too young for Maya at any rate, but he WAS a little handsome. And muscular. And he had that spectacular endurance. Throw in a little pilot glamour and he would have to beat the girls off with a stick. Shame about the sense of direction thing, really. Like father, like son.

Plus, it was pretty obvious he was making the whole "Ranma and Akane" thing up. Obviously, he d gotten the name "Ranma" from Misato sometime. Fairly stupid to use it here, too. Misato tended to get very drunk at social functions, and some times she would talk. Maya thought she knew why Misato drank so much, a past like that.

"Maya?" Eek! That was Misato!

Oh, it was coming through her headset. "Yes, Captain?"

"Find Ryoga and Rei. There s a problem at the Jet Alone site, and we need Eva here."

"An Angel!"

"No, just a dumb robot that s too stupid to stop moving."

"I ll get them. Details?"

"I can t believe she said that." Ryoga looked over at Rei as the two headed towards the train exits. "She... she thought... hell she still thinks!" Rei was blushing, not much but she was so pale. "That s..."

Wait a second. If he could recall, the most stupid thing you could do to a girl was make her think you didn t like her, for some reason. Hold it down, pull it in, center... there. "a misconception, that s all. She s just got an active imagination."

{RYOGA-KUN! AYANAMI!}

Oh, great, more voices in his head.

{REPORT TO FIFTH HANGAR!}

No, not voices. Maya, on the intercom. Angel attack?

Misato looked across the seat of the briefing room. Well, the briefing spot in the cockpit, anyway. She and Ryoga were flying a few hundred feet over the old Jet Alone proving grounds. "Do you understand the operation, Ryoga-kun?"

"Yeah. I m supposed to drop down, run up to the robot, put you at the hatch in the back, then stop it from moving while you turn it off, right?"

"Right."

"That s crazy!"

"Well, there s no other options at this point."

"I ll go. I can work the computer. Besides, I ll probably be safer in there."

No time to argue. "I can t pilot Eva to get you there, dummy. Get in there."

"Why don t I just beat on it some?"

"BECAUSE it has a nuclear reactor! You ll make it explode!"

"What were they going to do when the Angel hit it?"

"I don t know. Shut up and quit arguing, we re almost there."

Ryoga chased after the Jet Alone robot with Eva 01. It was pretty slow. He caught up to the back, grabbed the thing that looked like a handle with its left hand. It didn t stop trying to walk, so he leaned back, shifting the weight balance to keep it from moving its pivot foot. "Ready?"

\"Go!"/ Misato crouched in his right hand. He moved it up to the hatch, watched as she grabbed the emergency release handle. Watched her as the rock beneath Eva s feet gave, and she tumbled around the side, and down...

Down to a nearby hand rung. Wow! She was pretty good, to be able to hang on with one hand in that heavy environment suit she had on. "Misato? You all right?"

She gestured with the victory sign, went up the rungs. This time, she made it inside the hatch.

He wasn t going to be able to hang on to the back of this thing forever. He pivoted, threw himself in front, braced himself against the thing. It was really stupid-looking. No head. The arms were really, really, really long, down to the knees, and flexible. And swinging, like the thing was still moving. He gave it a little punch.

\"I can t do this if you re rocking the thing, Ryoga!"/

Well, ripping its legs off was out then. He decided to stand there and hang on until something happened.

Two minutes of power remaining.

He moved one giant hand to cover a steam rupture. With any luck, that was a secondary backup coolant. Not radioactive, anyway. Besides, the primary coolant wasn t on, that was the problem.

One minute thirty seconds of power remaining.

The ground under his feet couldn t take too much more. Already, he was sliding a little bit.

One minute of power remaining.

\"Damn it, the password s not working!"/

"Misato!" What did she mean, the password wasn t working?

\"It won t accept the password! It s still trying to melt down!"/

Oh no. "Get out of there!"

\"I have to shut it down, Ryoga! I ll try moving the rods by hand."/ As if they didn t weigh several tons each. Not even he could do it like that.

"Misato, the coolant pump! Try breaking the coolant pump!"

\"Huh?"/

"They build these things to where gravity floods the thing with coolant if the pump breaks. Just find it and break it!"

A few seconds, and two more steam line breaks.

\"I found it! They label everything in here."/

"Great! Smash it!" He felt like smashing something. He had lots of anger to sublimate.

\"What, with my bare hands?"/

Huh? She had gloves on. "Just hit it!"

\"It s... not... working!"/

Thirty seconds of power left, which meant maybe twenty till it blew. "Close your eyes. You can feel the pump, feel the metal and the water. Stiffen your right index finger. Ready?" This d never work. It took him a week to get this right, and it didn t work right on metal anyway. "Strike!"

\"Hyah!"/

And something happened. The big vent rods from the robot s back withdrew into the robot s body. "Hey! You did it! All right!"

\"Yeah, something gave, a little."/

"Wow! It s a miracle! Are you all right?"

\"I ve been better. I m coming out, now."/

Misato was quiet for most of the ride home. Her right index finger was in a heavy splint. She didn t know what was more stupid, Ryoga s last-  
second, stupid idea or her stupidity in actually trying the stupid thing. It hurt, really badly. He nodded, said something like, "It does, the first few hundred times," and then tried to wander off. She had managed to sic Hyuuga on him, though.

There was no way that the dinky amount of coolant that went through the broken valve could possibly have cooled off the reactor that quickly. The whole system had cycled... and that meant software control. It couldn t have been the Jet Alone people; they were all stunned that it had worked, and had spent an hour pestering poor Ryoga about that bakusai whatever thing. That left very few suspects. She d have to have words with Ritsuko when she returned.

"Captain?"

"Yes, Hyuuga?" Good thing he could drive.

"Message from NERV HQ. You re to take Hibiki and meet Unit 02 coming in with the Fifth Fleet."

"Great." Good thing she had packed for an overnight stay at the conference. "Hey, Ryoga-kun, you packed?"

"You kidding?" He patted the top of his pack, lying next to him in the back seat. "I live out of this thing."

"Great."

"Hey, somebody make sure to tell Rei that I ll be gone. Don t want her getting worried or anything."

"Ryoga, I didn t know you cared about Rei."

"Damn it, not you too Hyuuga!"

End of part seven

Send questions, comments, flames to akent 


	8. Chapter 8

"What do you mean, you meant tomorrow?"

Well, that was all well and good, from Ryoga s point of view. Sure, he had been ready to go when the call had first come through, on the way back from stopping that Jet Alone thing... but, to be honest, was it really a good idea for him to go on board a ship? In the middle of the ocean?

Yeah, he d be just as ready tomorrow as today. And just as reluctant, probably.

"Well, tomorrow it is, then." Misato put away her cellular phone. "Well, Ryoga-kun, guess who s turn it is to make dinner." Maybe he should have pressed her to go early. Navy makes a fine meal, he thought he remembered somebody saying...

Paradise Lost, Part 8 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Gainax or Rumiko Takahashi -  
"Ryoga, how can you be so cheerful? It s six in the morning!" Misato crawled out of the remains of her bed. Oog. Nothing worse than waking up early. No way out of it, though, they had to be ready to fly out to meet the new Eva.

"Guess I just slept well last night." The scent of frying sausage brought her the rest of the way awake. Not for the first time, she gave thanks that her youthful housemate happened to be able to cook.

"Be there in a second." She staggered into the bathroom, attacked the mass of tangles on top of her head. Shouldn t have had THAT many beers as a celebration, I suppose.

Ow! Hey! She stared down at her right index finger. She d forgotten about that... she d sprained it pretty badly the day before. As if she should have been able to shatter a steel water flow valve with one fingertip. That Ryoga had the most stupid ideas imaginable, sometimes. And the umbrella thing was getting old.

But, he did make breakfast. She finished up, stumbled into the kitchen. He was already halfway through a meal fit for a dozen hungry Vikings. The fridge was working well, though. Ah. Beer. Beer would make the morning better. She grabbed two, another for Ryoga (you never know), and sat at the table.

"Mmpf. Go ahead, Misato. Pretty tasty, this morning." Did he have to rub it in like that? He kept on making references to that Akane person whenever he ate her cooking. The rest of the time, though, he talked about her like he worshipped the ground that she floated over. It was good sausage, though. She slugged the first beer, one gulp, and shouted, "Yeah! Now this is the way to start the morning."

"You say that... mmpf... every day." He bolted another bite the size of her fist. "What time do we leave?"

"I don t know exactly, we just have to be at NERV by eight to catch the helicopter flight. Not that it would leave without us, but your father would kill me." Gendo did NOT like having his schedule messed with, not at all.

"Well, what re we going to do about R... Ayanami?"

"Don t be coy, Ryoga. We ll give Rei the day off. Somebody s got to mind the store in case the Angels attack again." As if he could hide that from her. Just look at him blush! "You ll have to dispose of your two buddies yourself, though."

She heard a knock on the front door. Speak of the devil, and should he appear... "I ll get it." Ryoga finished the last bite, stood up and headed for the door. "Mmpf morning, guys."

"Good morning, Hibiki-kun!" The two managed to wedge their heads around the doorway. "Good morning, Katsuragi-san!"

"Guys, I m busy today, no school. See you around."

"No, wait a second." She had an idea. "Hey, you two want to come along today? We re going to go see a friend." An evil idea.

"Really? Come with you? What do you say, Kensuke?"

"Anything beats listening to another Second Impact lecture, right?"

Ryoga slipped outside, between the two. Rei must be arriving. "Well, if you guys will wait a second, we ll get going."

Kensuke s eyes narrowed. "Early start. It s in Japan, right?"

"Not really." He was pretty perceptive, wasn t he? "We re catching a ride on Eva 02 s escort. They re about a day from New Yokohama."

"Escort... day... navy. COOL. Eva and Navy. Very cool. We re going, Touji."

Touji twisted back his baseball cap. "Right."

"Good morning, Hibiki-kun." Rei thought that Ryoga seemed to be in a good mood. At least, he was wide awake and smiling.

"Morning, Rei. Did Misato tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"I m going out for a couple of days. We re going to visit the new Eva coming in."

Well, that sounded fine. "Sure."

"Um... she wants you to stay here, in case the Angels attack or something." He scratched the back of his head.

"Understood." No Ryoga duties today, then.

"Great. Have a good day at school, then." Ryoga turned, walked back to the apartment door, grabbed both Kensuke and Touji in a double hammerlock. "Look, you two, no funny stuff today, got it? No pushing people overboard or anything like that." She still didn t understand humor. That sounded like a joke, and Kensuke and Touji were laughing, but Ryoga wasn t. Not even smiling.

Oh. If he fell off the ship, he d turn into a pig. And they didn t know he would do that. Why didn t he tell them? He could get into trouble if he turned into a pig and they didn t know how to turn him back.

Oh well. "Good..." She d almost said "goodbye..." again. Why did he react to that one word? "day." Perfect, he didn t bristle at that one.

She started towards the classroom. It was only ten minutes away, and the trip should go faster without her having to shepherd Ryoga. It was a lot of work, getting him somewhere. If Rei had ever really understood pity, she would have felt it for Misato right then.

Kensuke thanked his lucky stars that he d brought his camera. Of course, he always brought his camera. Unless he forgot it, which he hadn t. And lots of film and batteries, come to think of it. This day was turning out to be a visual feast.

First, there was the helicopter. He d never had a chance to see an A-55 transport up close... and now he was riding in one. He made a mental note to tell the General that the seats in back were a bit crowded. These things were supposed to accommodate four armed troopers, but somehow Ryoga, Touji, and him (and Ryoga s pack) had managed to eat up all of the room.

And then... the fleet. Destroyers. Cruisers. FIVE battleships, huge guns and all. And the centerpiece, the masterpiece, the aircraft carrier "Over the Rainbow" was only a hundred feet below. He panned the camera. Cool.

The trip over hadn t been too bad. For some reason, Misato managed to stay awake for the entire flight, while Ryoga had dozed off fairly early. Not much conversation, except for some light teasing (Touji was so easy to tweak, even Misato had figured it out) and jokes.

The helicopter touched down on the deck. Touji punched Ryoga s arm. "Wake up, man, we re here."

Cool. Cool. The one word appeared over and over in Kensuke s mind as he walked out of the helicopter. Real jets, American make, F-18. Flight crews. Fighter pilots. Technicians. Fuel cars. He made sure to check that the lens cap was off. Everybody had a slightly amused smile... well, maybe he was showing too much enthusiasm. But hey! This stuff was SO COOL.

He turned, caught one person by the rail. SHE didn t fit in here. Maybe sixteen, brown hair, two ponytails, yellow dress. NOT military personnel. She had stepped on... hey, that was Touji s cap. A quick check told him that Touji had lost the cap... and was now, unsuccessfully, attempting to grab his cap off of the deck.

"Long time no see, Asuka. You ve grown up a little." Misato was smiling.

"And how! I m not just taller; my figure s filled out as well."

And then... man, these winds were killer sometimes on the Pacific... WOW! Well, so much for showing this tape to the Admiral...

Those... those... those JERKS! Looking like that. Asuka was furious. Well, time for some divine punishment. First, the one wearing the black shirt. He d been at point-blank range, so to speak.

SMACK

One down. The short, goofy-looking one... he had a CAMERA! A video camera! And it was on! The indignity.

SMACK

Two down. The third one was big, yellow shirt, no fashion sense. Dumb yellow headband, too. He was blushing beet red.

This time, it wasn t the satisfying SMACK of slamming palm into cheek. More like palm into steel. CRUNCH was more like it. Damn, but that hurt! "Ouch! What are you, a robot?" He was still blushing. She resisted the temptation to try again. An Eva pilot shouldn t mangle her wrists over things like that.

Misato (PURPLE hair? Really) piped up from the back row. "No, robot pilot, just like you. Asuka Langley Soryu, meet Ryoga Hibiki. Ryoga..."

NOW he was reacting. "How do you do." He sketched a small bow. "Lovely morning, isn t it?" What was this crap?

"You mean THIS big lunk is the Third Child?" Come to think of it, he was HUGE compared to the others. Maybe six feet, must be at least one hundred eighty pounds, all muscle. "No way he s only fourteen."

"What? No, I m seventeen. What does that matter?"

"Well, OBVIOUSLY, stupid, you re supposed to know that only fourteen-  
year-olds can pilot Eva. Not funny, Misato."

"Really? Stupid NERV regulations. Oh well, too late now."

"He really is an Eva pilot, Asuka. Killed all those Angels."

Well, that didn t make any sense... it d keep. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yeah, a power plug for Unit 02. Just in case of emergencies, you know." Misato stepped behind the goofy kid, who d recovered from his beating and was looking around like a tourist. "Come on, people, we ve got to check in, you know."

Justin looked over the motley group in front of him. One woman, thirtysomething, stunning except for a ridiculous purple dye job. One boy, black shirt, bruise on face, stupid white ball cap. Backwards, of course. Another boy, glasses, freckles, and camcorder. He was about to have a fit of some type, from how he kept looking around at everything. Asuka, he knew too well for his liking. The last, a young man, well-  
muscled and wearing a rucksack of all things. And he had some metal widgets stuck in his bandana.

These guys could be fun. "Welcome to the "Over the Rainbow", everybody. What s up?"

"Captain?" The purple-haired one spoke up. "I m Misato Katsuragi, NERV Operations Command. These are pilot Ryoga Hibiki and two friends, Touji Suzuhara and Kensuke Aida. You know Soryu already."

"Charmed, of course. I m Captain Tylor. Justin Wakefield Tylor. What brings you guys by? We ll make port tomorrow anyway."

"Just think of it as added security, Captain. We also brought the power adapter for Unit 02."

"Hey, that s neat. Just plugs in the back, right? I don t see why we need one here, though. Can Eva fight underwater, too?"

"Well, no." Oh, well. It would have LOOKED fun. "But it s always best to be prepared in case of emergencies, you know."

"Yeah, I get a lot of that from my lieutenant commander, too."

Another voice came from the doorway. "Just about everything you get from Star, I suspect, Tylor."

Heh. Misato really had gone into shock, just like Kaji had said she would. "That just might be your friend Kaji, you know. Let s find out." He creeped to the door, opened it and bolted through, looking down the hallway. "No, nobody s here. A ghost?"

"Not yet." Hey! Justin turned around as Kaji grabbed his captain s hat. "Hello, Captain, Captain, everybody."

Ryoga looked over at the man in the doorway. "Kaji-san!" Asuka launched herself that way. From what he could see... Kaji was about Misato s age, maybe a bit younger. Dark hair. Lots of stubble, like he hadn t shaved in a week. He was smiling. For some reason, Ryoga immediately liked this man.

Of course, not everybody reacted like that. Kensuke was still going crazy about getting actual footage of the bridge, while Touji was staring at Asuka and rubbing his cheek. The Tylor fellow had grabbed his hat and promptly put it on backwards. Misato, on the other hand... she had flinched like his voice was a whip. Still tense, battle tense, too. Obviously something going on here.

"Captain!" They all turned to look at the other door, which framed the lieutenant commander. Her name badge read "Star" and her face meant trouble... she was angry. "What are all of these people doing on the bridge?"

"Well, you know, I was getting to know the new guys, and then Kaji turned up and grabbed my hat..." He cut off as Star walked over and twisted his cap back into position, turning his head in the process.

"You can t run a warship with a half dozen children on the bridge!" Hey, that was rude. "Sorry, people, but you re not supposed to be here. Captain s orders."

"I don t remember giving those orders."

"You re about to." For a second, Star s fist flared red.

"I suddenly remember. I ll see you for dinner then, everybody."

"Well, well. You two are hopeless. Shall we go?" Kaji turned, extended his arm to Misato.

She made a point of ignoring it as she headed for the door. "Oh, make sure to get the power plug hooked up, Captain Tyler."

"No problem." The door closed on an irate comment from Star.

Well, that s one way to run a ship. For some reason, he felt right at home here.

The entire party crammed itself into a service elevator. "The cafeteria food isn t quite as good as what you d expect, but it s palatable." Kaji was grinning. Misato was NOT grinning, and moved as far from him as the elevator allowed. Of course, it was a tight fit. Ryoga didn t move a muscle... any twitch would probably be considered lewd, improper, or gay and lewd or improper.

The door opened one thirty-second eternity later. Kensuke smiled evilly and said, "Don t worry about Ryoga. He s been living with Misato."

"I commend you and your iron stomach, Ryoga-kun."

Well, it was an effort. "I can honestly say, Kaji-san, that Misato s cooking is not the worst that I eat on a regular basis."

Kaji seemed stunned. "I wasn t aware that such a thing was possible."

"Would you guys please lay off my cooking habits?" Misato stormed over to the coffee machine, grabbed a cup. Touji started feeding change into the vending machine on the wall.

"Dr. Pepper all right for everybody?"

Hey, if he was buying... "Sure."

A chorus of "fine" and "all right" answered Touji. He brought the drinks over to the table.

"So, you re the famous Third Child." Kaji leaned over the table. "Killed an Angel, with no combat training or synch practice."

That was perilously close to an insult. "No practice, lots of training. I AM a martial artist first, you know."

"I had not known, although I can believe it. I don t believe some of the other things that I ve heard, though..."

Kensuke paused in the middle of changing the battery on his camcorder. "Believe it. I wouldn t have either, until I saw him in gym class."

"So, can he really break concrete blocks?"

"Yeah, with his hands, feet, and head, too." Well, gosh, even Akane could do that...

"That would account for his face, then."

"Asuka, that s rude."

"It was just a joke, Misato, you know that."

"It s all right. I really can t afford to worry about how I look." How did they get on this topic?

"So, Ryoga-kun, you re living with Misato. Tell me... is she still an animal in bed?"

Hmm... it s been a while since this many people face faulted at the same time... and he said... and meant... oh, man. He could feel his face turning red. Misato had spit coffee all over Touji s cap, and Touji hadn t even noticed. If looks could kill, Asuka wouldn t need an Eva to fight a Kaji-shaped Angel. Even Kensuke had looked up for a second.

"I ll have you know..." "That s SICK!" "No way!" Come to think of it, the thought was pretty repulsive. Why didn t he feel attracted to Misato? Who knew. "I don t really want to know, Kaji-san."

"Ah, a safe answer."

"Ryoga?" Misato s voice was almost dripping with sugar.

"Yeah?"

"Let me borrow that umbrella of yours for a minute, will you?"

"Sure." He pulled it out from his pack, flipped it, offered the handle to Misato. She grabbed it, both hands, and raised it over her head. "Take it back, Kaji, or it s all over."

"In that case, I take it back. What is that thing you re waving around?"

She lost her grip on the umbrella. It fell on the table... through the table. Of course, it was only a folding kind, and his umbrella WAS solid depleted uranium. He d have to thank that construction engineer the next time he wandered by.

"Um... good question. Ryoga?"

"It keeps the rain off." It was also the central tool of his own style of martial arts, of course. Not that anybody would understand that.

"No kidding. I m going back to the bridge, then. Anybody coming?"

Asuka grabbed Ryoga s arm. "You come with me, pilot boy. There s something I want you to see." Touji snickered, then ducked the requisite slap.

Asuka clambered on top of HER Eva 02. So, that big lug was a pilot, was he? Well, anybody could get lucky, she supposed. And since Hibiki is his father... nepotism, a classic case of it too. He d probably curl up and die the first time he saw REAL combat.

"What are you waiting for? Come on!"

For some reason, he was oddly reluctant to get on the bridge to her Eva. "I can see just fine from over here." "Over here" was the edge of the pool that suspended Eva 02. "I didn t know that it was red."

"Heh. The color s not the only thing different about it. Ayanami s Eva was just the proof-of-concept model, and yours was the testing model, just to work out the bugs. Everything they learned, they put into this one. Here, you see the final product, Eva Unit 02. The perfect Evangelion."

"I ll take your word for it." He said this to the rocking of the ship. The ship doesn t rock like that... and it sure doesn t make rumbling noises like that. "What s going on? Enemy attack?"

She looked at the entry plug, still open. After grabbing her duffel from the seat of the cockpit, she skipped across the bridge and back to him. All right. THIS is my chance. Wait until they get a load of me.

Ryoga wasn t sure why he was waiting at the side of the stairwell... well actually he was quite sure. Asuka had to be changing, which would account for the thrown shoe and the yell of "Pervert" when he had peeked to check on her. Obviously, she was putting on her plug suit. That meant she wanted to use the Eva. Well, so long as he didn t get wet, it would be all right, he supposed.

A wad of fabric hit him in the chest. "Get changed, pilot boy. Only plug suits in the cockpit." He shook out the garment. How Asuka expected him to fit into one of HER plug suits, he couldn t fathom. She had to be a foot shorter than him, and just over half the weight as well.

"Look, it won t work. I ll go as I am." He started for the door.

"What, and get my entry plug dirty? Besides, you need your neural connectors for a good connection."

That s right. He fiddled with his headband until the two oblong metal pieces stuck up like antennae. "Always prepared, that s me."

"Oh, I give up. Come on." The two bolted for the Eva, listening to the sounds of battle.

Ryoga didn t trust the pontoons this time, either. One jump took him from the pool edge to the entry plug. He shrugged off his pack and tossed it into the cockpit. "I m ready to go."

"Hey! Get that gross thing out of there! It ll pollute the LCL!"

"It ll be fine, I had it with me on my first run through this thing. Besides, I m not leaving it here."

"Whatever." She settled in the pilot s seat. He settled for the softer part of his pack as a chair.

Asuka keyed through the initial startup sequences. "There s... an error somewhere. Something s not working. Thought noise! You re thinking too loud!"

"Um... I wasn t thinking too loud."

"Yeah, but it has to be in German!"

German? She had to pick the one country he d never wandered across. "I don t know German." Maybe the gibberish she had been spouting while starting it up had been German.

"You re pretty stupid, aren t you? I m switching to basic Japanese. Think you can handle that?"

"Yeah." This was NOT the time to get angry at a little sarcasm.

"The missiles aren t working!" Star never did handle odd things well. "Have the escorts prepare a bombardment!"

Justin leaned back in his chair. To be honest, he could have done without an attack as well. "Now, now, if the guns don t work, tell them to stop firing. No sense in wasting the ammunition, and we might hit our own ships at this range."

"Are you serious?" She whirled on him. "Just stop firing? In the middle of an enemy attack? What, do you hope that it will just go away or something?"

"Not exactly." He gestured towards the door, which had just opened to admit Misato. "She might have some ideas, though."

"Special delivery... would you like to order information on how to defeat the enemy?" Misato was cheery this time.

"See? Go ahead, come in. We give big tips for good service here."

"You re probably shooting at an Angel, you know."

Star was about to explode. If he managed to stay quiet for the next minute, somebody else would get hit.

"Of COURSE we re shooting at it! What else are we going to do? That Eva of yours has type B equipment... it doesn t work underwater!"

"So don t let it get wet." Oops. He shouldn t have said that. Here it comes... WHAP ouch! Oh well.

One of the communications operators spoke up. "The transport says that they re activating the Evangelion!"

"Heh. Just in time, too. Way to go, Asuka!" Misato looked out the window toward the huge transport that carried Eva 02.

"Ready, pilot boy?" Ryoga really wished that Asuka would stop calling him that.

"Ready as I m going to get."

"Well, here goes!"

The Eva jumped, launching itself a few hundred feet in the air. They couldn t see too well, the tarp had gotten caught on the Eva, but the navigation system was working fine. Ryoga DID see the transport shatter under an impact from whatever that thing was.

"Hope nobody s on that deck down there..."

Well, it was a little late to worry about things like that NOW. The Eva landed, both feet, on a helicopter launching pad. The metal deck buckled like rice paper hit by a flying body, and then they were airborne again. Nice hang time for something this big. Asuka did something funny with the controls, and the Eva flung the tarp off.

This time, they came down on a gun turret. Good thing it wasn t firing or they d have lost a leg. "Asuka, we ve only got thirty seconds of power left."

"I know that! Don t worry, we ll make it." The next jump would carry them onto the aircraft carrier. Ryoga hoped that they had the plug ready, or this was going to be a short fight.

The impact jarred him, and he bounced around at the bottom of the entry plug. Jets skidded off of the surface of the suddenly tilted carrier deck and into the water. Nobody on deck; obviously they had been seen coming.

"There s the plug." Asuka crouched the Eva, wrestled the plug into the socket on the back of Unit 02. "There, all the power we need."

"Yeah, but none of the weapons."

"Are you kidding? I ve got the progressive knife..." She stood, flipped the knife from one shoulder housing. Interesting style, extending instead of his butterfly housing. Cool-looking, too. It started glowing purple from the intense vibration.

"Here it comes... whoa! It s HUGE!"

"I expected that. Come on, let s go!"

The Angel heaved itself up and out of the water. Huge didn t say it. It was easily six times larger than the Eva! No hands or legs though. Just looked like a big whale or something. Well, it didn t need arms. Its weight alone was enough to slam the Eva into the deck. The left foot wedged into a jet elevator... the elevator collapsed. Ryoga felt the Eva tilting to one side...

No. No water. No fighting under water. "I WILL NOT get WET!"

Asuka felt something enter between her link with the Eva. Another presence. An angry presence, desperate. It jammed the free arm into the side of the carrier, halting their fall.

Considering the situation, there could only be ONE reason. "Ryoga, you IDIOT! What are you doing?"

He didn t answer. Asuka could see beads of sweat on his face, tension in the muscles. He really didn t want to go under, after all. He moved his arms... and the Eva responded, flinging it (and the Angel) up and away from the carrier.

"Hey, stupid, this is MY Eva!" She tried breaking into the link... and suddenly, she "saw" what Ryoga had in mind. "Well, so long as it works..."

The Angel crashed down on a missile cruiser, with Eva on top. The power cord hadn t snagged, thank goodness. Now, the two pilots grabbed the sides of the Angel s mouth, forcing it open.

"Where s the core?" Asuka s fingers flew over the keyboard. "There!" Of course... dead center inside.

"Tell them..." Ryoga had his arms braced against the sides of the cockpit, elbows locked. "Tell them to shoot in!"

"What? Shoot IN it?" Misato turned to Tylor. "Can you do that?"

"Sure, why not? Yurika, can you..."

Star attacked her station. "Already on it, Captain. The battleships have the target."

This just might work. "Tell them to be careful... if they miss, they ll hit the ship or the Eva."

"No problem. We DON T miss. Battleships firing."

The shells from the two battleships on that side of the formation streaked towards the cruiser... at least five of them went directly inside the Angel s mouth. Of course, the other four exploded right ON the Angel s mouth, and the concussion blew both Angel and Eva into the ocean.

"Don t miss, Yurika?"

"I didn t do that."

Well, this was just dandy. Stuck inside an entry plug with Asuka for an hour, dangling in the middle of the ocean from the power cord. Misato had said it would take at least another hour to haul them back on deck. The damage wasn t bad, though. No leaks, thank God.

"I still can t believe you did that. Couldn t you at least have asked permission before grabbing MY Eva?"

"Would you drop it? It worked, right?" This must be how Ranma feels whenever Akane s feeling particularly jealous. No man deserved this. "Besides, you wanted me to come."

"I can t remember why! Be glad you did, anyway. Otherwise, you d be headed for the bottom of the sea!"

Brrr. That didn t bear thinking about. "Yeah, well, could you at least stop kicking me?"

"No! It s got to hurt first!"

"Come on, you might as well be kicking the wall. You just don t know enough martial arts to hurt me with a kick."

"That s what you think..." She concentrated, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth for an instant. "There!" Her foot lashed out.

CLANK

"OW! My foot!" Oh, yeah, right, like he d actually NOT wear a cup. Oldest female trick in the book.

"Serves you right."

Ukyou finished tidying the last table. After the lunch rush, she d have about an hour of free time until the first dinner customers arrived. No reason to rush.

She still didn t believe it. Ranma had broken it off. No "look, let s just be friends". No "I can t, I ve got a fianc e". He had actually SAID that he loved Akane, SAID that he didn t love Ukyou. The jackass. How could he string her along for SO LONG and then dump her? He deserved Akane, AND her cooking! Especially the cooking.

The door slid open. "Little bit early for dinner, aren t you?" She turned around, spotted a green school uniform, red irises, blue hair. She jumped, rolled over the bar, came up with her large spatula. "What, back for more, then?"

The girl (Rei, right?) didn t go for her gun. She had a school bag in her hands. No battle aura. Well, maybe not. "I... need to talk to you."

"Okaaaaaay. Come in." She didn t put down the spatula as Rei sat down at the counter. "Talk about what?"

"About Hibiki-kun."

"And why me?"

"Who else?"

"Well, you could just ask Ryoga, he doesn t lie." Usually, anyway, he was really direct.

"He s out of town."

"Fancy that." Ukyou sat down. Rei wasn t here for a fight. "Well, talk then."

"First... he told me that I wasn t supposed to shoot you."

"Big of him." Funny, she was putting enough venom in her voice to drop elephants. Rei must not register sarcasm well. "I feel the same way."

"I don t understand why, though. You were going to hurt him."

"Of course I was going to hurt him. This whole marriage thing is his fault, you know. If he d just have kept his big mouth shut and suffered like he always did, none of this would have happened."

"So why did he tell me not to shoot you?"

Because he was stupid? "You tried asking him?"

"Yes. He kept saying something about you being a friend and that you weren t supposed to shoot friends... I don t understand. If you re his friend, why did you want to hurt him?"

He said THAT? After what he did? He would, too. "It s... a little complicated. Did he tell you about Ranma?"

"He turns into a girl."

"There s more to it than that..." Ukyou gave her the condensed version of Ranma s life story, fianc es included. "You see?"

"No."

"Well, take my word for it. He s a great guy. I can t believe he s actually going to marry Akane!"

"Why not? He loves Akane, you said."

Hm. It seemed Rei never learned tact, either. "What does he see in her anyway? What does she have that I don t have?"

"Ryoga would know. He loves Akane too."

"He did. He gave her up, remember?"

"But he told me that he still loves her. This whole thing is confusing. Does everybody live like this?"

"Who knows?" He still loved Akane, then. But he was giving her up! She knew how much he had felt... how deeply... "Did he say why?"

"He was afraid of hurting her. He thinks he s not safe to be around."

Well, true, he was hard on his surroundings. And, if she took what Ranma had said at face value (the JACKASS!) then he d almost blown up the whole city a few days ago. Just like Ryoga.

"Why doesn t Akane love Ryoga, then?"

Besides the obvious? "Well... Ryoga s not too smart. Plus, he s never around when you need him. And he can t remember how strong he is... it s not normal. It can be hard on somebody."

Rei s eyes tightened a little. "I feel... something. I m tired of thinking about this."

"It s called frustration. Ryoga s good at that too, you know." AND Ranma, the jackass. Well, so long as Rei was here... "Is he really a pilot?"

"Yes. He pilots Eva 01."

"He any good at it?"

"I don t know, really. I didn t see the first two fights, and the third one..." She flinched a bit. "I was busy and didn t look at him. He just beat another one."

"Really? When? I didn t hear an alarm or anything."

"Just a few minutes ago. He was out with the new Eva unit. An Angel must have attacked him."

"How do you know?" The robots never showed up on the news, for some strange reason, but people talked about the fights.

Rei shrugged. "I know."

"Is he all right?"

"Yes."

"Well, that s good then. Oh, yeah, before I forget..." Ukyou reached under the counter, came up with a yellow cloth. "Can you give this back to Ryoga? I m done with it."

"It s got blood on it."

"Don t worry, I m not infectious." Come to think of it, it did look pretty gross. "Well, then, I ll wash it and give it back to him later." She replaced it back under the counter. "So, what else do you need to talk about?" For some reason she felt better. At least SHE wasn t the only person suffering over Ranma (the jackass!) and Akane.

"Dinner, maybe. I m hungry." She looked surprised, too. Well, maybe it was the excellent cooking...

"I think I can make some dinner. Let me guess... no meat, right?"

That couldn t have been a grin. Maybe a nervous tick. "Right."

"Um... I hate to say this... but I ve got this policy. No free food to anybody who shoots the cook." Ryoga s tab, by now, looked like the defense budget of a small African nation.

Rei reached into a pocket, pulled out a wad of paper. Paper money. LOTS of paper money. Man, Ukyou thought, she was in the wrong business. "How much does dinner cost?"

"I was just joking, you know." Well, if she WANTED to pay, that was different. "Ten thousand should cover it."

Rei counted out five two-thousand bills. "Is that right?"

"Yeah." Well, so much for Ryoga s tab. "Actually, it s a lot extra, but I had to pay Dr. Tofu to look at my ear. Incidentally, he told me that I should cream you the next time I saw you."

"I wouldn t enjoy that."

"No, you wouldn t. So the extra charge is for me breaking doctor s orders."

"All right."

By this time, the griddle was hot. "Here goes, then."

Unit 02 was being unloaded from the carrier deck. Ritsuko smiled. It didn t seem to be in bad shape, for all that it had been keel-hauled. Misato was coming down the gangplank. "Well, it seems that you had fun."

"Well, some." Misato wasn t smiling. "That Kaji. Who d have thought he d be out there?"

"Where is he?" Ritsuko couldn t see him on the deck, and he hadn t come off yet.

"I really don t want to know. He hid somewhere during the attack and I haven t seen him since."

"Well, take a look at this." Ritsuko gestured to her clipboard, which had information from Unit 02 s telemetry. "Impressive, huh?"

"Yeah, he broke his synch ratio record."

"She did too, right here. It must have been the stress involved."

Asuka limped down the catwalk, hopped into the back of Ritsuko s jeep. "No kidding. YOU try piloting an Eva with that thing sometime."

Ryoga didn t use the catwalk at all. He jumped, dropped the seventy feet to the dock. "Hey! I thought we agreed to drop it."

"That was before I had to walk on this foot."

"Your own fault and you know it, Asuka."

"Yeah, yeah, get in, stupid. Where are we going, Misato?"

"Home, I guess." She looked over at Ritsuko. "You re invited to a victory celebration, you know."

"Not if you re cooking, Misato." She didn t bother looking up. Ritsuko had tried Misato s cooking once, years ago. She was probably still digesting the stuff, come to think of it.

"How about it, Kensuke?" He had managed to make it down the gangway himself.

"No thanks, I ve got to get home and store this stuff." He must have been carrying two days worth of film disks. "Thanks for taking me along!"

"No problem. Where s Touji?"

Touji was coming out as well. Right next to Kaji. "Hurry, Ritsuko, let s go!"

Ritsuko started the motor. "See you at work, Kaji." He was carrying a case of some kind, an armored case. The mission had been successful, then. "Stay away from the women."

"So, then I..."

"No way! She let you..."

"Of course!"

The two were a good pair, Ritsuko concluded.

End of part eight

Questions, comments, flames go to akent

Heh. Next time... living arrangements and face rearrangements. 


	9. Chapter 9

"So, where are we going now?" Asuka rubbed her sore foot. Mental note: Don t kick Ryoga. Even less effective and more painful than slapping him. "It can t be NERV; we re leaving." She peeked between the front seats of Misato s car. On her right, Misato was maneuvering the car out of the parking lot. It had been a while since she d seen Misato. She still looked pretty good, although the whole purple hair thing was getting old. Good taste in casual clothes, though.

"Nah, we re home for the day. I, for one, am bushed." Misato smiled. "Besides, it s his turn to cook dinner."

Opposite from Misato, the Third Child fastened his seat belt. And checked it. Ryoga Hibiki, if she remembered his last name right. Odd sort, even considering that she hadn t been expecting a normal Joe. For one thing, he wasn t fourteen. Theoretically, that disqualified him from even synchronizing with the Evangelion. She d seen him do it, though, even if it was with HER Eva.

And he wasn t quite normal. WAY muscled, the kind you get from lifting heavy things every morning, every day, for years. No taste in clothing, and the yellow shirt and black pants he had seemed to have been dirtied so much that the whole color was one stain. A little bit brown, she decided. Dust stains. Kind of odd, how he tied the pants at the bottom with those thongs. It reminded her of nothing so much as a ballet dancer, which REALLY didn t fit. The bandana across his temples, while not quite in fashion, was normal. Well, one would have been normal. He had to have at least two to keep the neural sensors up there like that, though.

He checked his seat belt buckle. And again. Then he eased back, relaxing no, not relaxing. He had a death grip on the arm of the seat. Actually, the grip was MOLDED into the arm of the seat, like they d cast his hand into it when they were making the thing. He turned around, looked at the massive backpack sitting in the back seat beside her. He glanced at her, and seemed to make some sort of mental connection. "Um, you should really buckle up, Asuka."

"What, a traffic safety lecture? I m sure Misato can handle..." He was staring at her, wide-eyed. "What, she can t?" His head shook, once, side to side."

"Yeah, no problem. I ve got everything under control. Just wait until I hit the highway."

That look on Ryoga s face... it was fear, fear he hadn t felt when fighting the Angel, fear he hadn t shown when he could have died. (Oddly enough, it was almost exactly like the look he wore when he had seen her with Eva 02 for the first time. He was afraid of... water? What, did he think he would melt?) But if he was afraid now... she sat back and fastened her own seat belt.

After all, anything that could scare him...

Paradise Lost, part 9 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All copyrights belong to Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax -  
Ryoga had his belt loose before the engine stopped. He flung the door open, lunged out, turned back around and tore his pack through the opening. In one leap, he was fifteen feet away from the car. To heck with the Eva and the world, to heck with not getting lost and having three meals a day, if he had to ride in the car with THAT WOMAN one more time...

"What, Ryoga-kun?" Misato climbed out, rather more sedately, then popped the seat latch to let Asuka out. He thought it was Asuka, but at that moment, it might just have been Rei with a different hairstyle and a few more pounds. Wait, no, Rei didn t have that green tinge to her skin. She wobbled away from the car, fell to her knees, and kissed the concrete once. "Not you too, Asuka."

"Do you..." Asuka started to stand up. "Do you know that you don t drive on that side of the road in Japan?"

"There was a traffic jam! Hardly anybody else on the other side. Come on, it s not like anybody got hurt."

Asuka straightened up, looked directly at Ryoga. "And you! What are you doing, hanging on that pole like that?"

Huh? Hey, what was he doing hanging on the light pole like that? He released the pole (noticing the bends where his palms had been) and dropped to the ground. "Sorry, reflex action."

"What, do you think you re a cat?"

Now what did she mean by that... oh yeah. Cats climb trees. "No, I don t."

"Well, I sure hope you ve got a nice place set up. Traveling on ship is NOT my idea of fun. No bunks. I want a nice, solid, fluffy bed for once."

Misato started up the stairwell to the fourth floor. "Well, to be honest, there s not much there yet. We got you the place next door to me, so it d be easier for you. Not much in the way of furniture, yet."

"Well, we can fix that." Asuka followed her up the stairs. He decided that it would be a good idea to go as well... it had been a long couple of days and he d just as well sleep in a house tonight.

Asuka sat in her "room". Well, had to give Misato credit, it was a whole apartment. And it did have a kitchen and three bedrooms, although what she d do with the other two, she had no idea. There was a chair and table in the kitchen, a couch, and a futon in one of the rooms. That was it, the whole kit and caboodle, so to speak.

And there was that hole in the wall. It was a good four inches wide, about three feet off of the ground, and looked like it had come from the room next door. When she d asked Misato, Ryoga shuffled his feet. He was depressingly easy to read. Of course, HOW he d made that hole was a different story, neither of them were talking about that. Probably wanted to peep on her or something, the pervert. Not that he could really help it, being a guy.

Somebody was knocking on the door. She got up and opened it, to see Ryoga standing outside. He had his pack on. "You want some dinner? I made extra."

Food was exactly what she wanted, right then. "Why not? Lead on, big lunk."

He seemed immune to the insult. "Sure." Turning around, he strode... the wrong way down the hallway.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"To eat, I told you."

"Yeah, but your apartment is THAT way."

He rubbed the back of his head. "Oh, yeah, thanks."

As he was passing her, she asked, "What, are you stupid or something?"

"No, just don t have any sense of direction."

No kidding. "Where I m from, it s called being stupid."

The two entered Misato s apartment, upon which Ryoga dropped the pack. As if he d need that thing to go twenty feet. Something did smell good in the kitchen, though. She decided to forgive him for being stupid, for now, and see what was for dinner.

"Hey! Let s eat." Misato was lounging at her table, in an outfit that was a tiny bit less than modest, and one that should have had Ryoga melting into a pool of lava. Of course, it was just a tank top and shorts (and they were!), but the WAY she wore them... Ryoga didn t seem to be affected. Funny, she had him pegged as the affection-starved type.

On the table was rice she d forgotten about that, she was going to have to get used to it and some kind of meat, pork probably. And a Coke. And two beers. Well, maybe Ryoga didn t drink. Except that the Coke was in front of the seat that Ryoga wasn t taking. "Um, don t I get one too?" The two looked at her, uncomprehending.

"I think she means the rice, Misato. Go ahead, take some."

He was pretty dim sometimes. "No, the beer! I don t like Coke anyway."

"Asuka, you re a bit young to be drinking beer with dinner. There s Dr Pepper in the fridge, though."

A bit young? What did she... oh. "Misato, exactly where do you think I spent the last few years, Spain? I ve been drinking beer with dinner for years." Not precisely true, but she d had a good amount of beer before.

From the look on Misato s face, she honestly hadn t considered that. "Well... you re not in Germany anymore. When in Rome..."

"Yeah, well, the only Romans I see here aren t drinking Coke."

Ryoga looked up from his dinner. Half of it was gone already. A speed eater? "Huh? Come on, eat up, it s getting cold."

"Um... go ahead, then. Stay away from the Yebisu, though, it s mine."

Ha! Her first victory in Japan. "Thanks." Maybe not enough sarcasm in the voice, it didn t register with Ryoga. Did with Misato, though. She fetched a beer from the fridge and sat down.

Hm. Good rice, good pork. Well, time to solidify her gains. "You cook a good dinner, Misato." There, a compliment should... Misato was looking at her funny. Ryoga was looking at her funny. That could only mean... yeah, she could remember Misato saying that it was his turn to cook. "You mean that you cooked this, Ryoga?" She definitely didn t have him pegged as a chef.

"Uh, yeah."

How expressive. She turned to Misato. "And you actually eat his cooking?"

"It s a good change from instant."

Ryoga started chuckling. "Misato s cooking is NOT the worst that I ve ever eaten. It took me a week to decide, though."

"No fair, Ryoga." This had the feel of "old joke" written all over it.

"What was it... something I heard once... somebody talking about Akane s cooking. Oh yeah! I don t have to try it to know it s toxic. That was it!" He was laughing now. Mental note, don t eat Misato s cooking.

It was good, though. She could get used to eating like this. "So, what s on the evening s schedule?"

"Sleep." Ryoga hadn t stopped eating to tell his joke, and he was done now. "I ve got class tomorrow."

"So do you, Asuka. You might want to turn in early."

That made no sense. "You know perfectly well that I don t need to go to school any more, Misato."

Ryoga chuckled again. "That argument doesn t work on her, I tried it already. Something in the pilot s manual, she says."

Well, damn. "So, where am I going?"

"We ll put you in Ryoga and Rei s class, for now. Easier to keep you all in one place."

"That s what, senior year?" Ayanami must be pretty advanced on her own. After all, it was certainly possible for a fourteen year old to do it... she had herself.

"Senior year of middle school." No. Misato looked straight at her. "Live with it."

"Why don t you stick me in kindergarten while you re at it?" That was crazy! She could spend her time doing... well, something better than review of things she already knew.

Ryoga stood up. "Look, they make ME go. I haven t been in school for two years, they bundle me up and put me back in. You might as well come too." Now she would not have believed that Ryoga had done it... he didn t seem that bright, although he wasn t exactly stupid. Except for the directions. " Night, Misato. See you in the morning." He headed down the hall of the apartment.

"Um, where is he going?"

"Bed, like you should."

"But he s not leaving."

"He doesn t HAVE to leave. He lives here."

Well, that was interesting. "He doesn t... you know..."

"Huh?" Misato glanced down at her second beer. "No! No, I can t even see him doing something like that."

Asuka put on her best "yeah right" face. "Sure... you dressing up like that. Even the dead would wake up for that kind of thing."

"No, really, I don t think he s even noticed. I know he s not gay, so it s not that. He just lost a girlfriend, maybe that has something to do with it."

Sometimes, Misato could be so na ve. "That would make him more likely to try something. You sure he doesn t?"

"Nope." Ryoga ducked his head around the corner of the kitchen door. "Don t ask me why. It s not that you re ugly, Misato, I m just not attracted to you." He ducked back. Exactly HOW long had he been listening?

"You re blushing, Asuka. Don t worry about him, he ll find his room in five minutes or so. Really, I believe him." Misato lowered her voice a little. "What brought that on? YOU don t have something in mind, do you?"

Not likely. "Yeah, but not with him..." Maybe with Kaji.

"Good morning, Hibiki-kun!" Kensuke chuckled. It was getting to be a morning ritual... he ducked his head inside the door with Touji. "Later, Katsuragi-san!"

"Come on, guys, enough already." Ryoga moved out of the door, taking them with him. "Rei here yet?"

"She s down below... maybe she didn t want to climb that many stairs just to see your face, Ryoga."

"Uncalled for, Touji. Besides, it IS the fourth floor, and we have a perfectly good reason for coming up anyway." Well, he did. Touji s reason was a little far-fetched.

"Well, let s get Asuka and get going."

He had to be joking. "That s not funny, Ryoga."

"No kidding." Touji shivered. "If I never set eyes on her again, it will be too soon."

They heard a voice behind them. "Good to feel so loved, huh, Ryoga?" Dripping with sarcasm. Kensuke ducked behind Touji... that way, he d catch the flak. The brown-haired terror was standing there, behind Ryoga, with some kind of bag. And that was NOT the school uniform she was wearing. Of course, he was the only one there in uniform, but...

Ryoga chuckled. "Surprise, guys. Meet the new student."

Ryoga would have nodded off during the lecture... but he had the sinking feeling that his head would do serious damage to his computer as it hit. Well, it s not like hearing ANOTHER lecture on the Second Impact could possibly matter, and since the darned thing is keeping him awake, might as well use it.

He punched a few buttons and keyed it onto the class network. A few more and he had broken out of the childish security system. User poll showed half the class on-line. Kensuke was one. In fact... he glanced over, saw Kensuke look at him and attack his own keyboard. A second later, an incoming message dropped onto his screen.

Subject: "evil presence"

Content: "You have any ideas on how to get rid of her? Maybe you could strangle her and make it look like an accident or something."

He fired back a reply.

Subject: "stupid Kensuke"

Content: "I m all for her being here. If I ve got to put up with this, it helps to know that as many people as possible are miserable with me. Besides, she can soak up fire from the Angels, that way Rei and I can take a few breaks now and then."

Kensuke started chuckling at his desk, wrote another message. Must have been to somebody else, though.

Maybe he would risk breaking the desk. Man, but class was boring.

"Class is OVER. Thank God." Asuka strolled out of the room. How could one man put so many people to sleep so fast? Oh well, she d gotten some reading done anyway. "Well, what now?"

Ryoga pulled up behind her. "I m going to visit some friends. Come on, Rei."

"What, I m not invited?" To be honest, Ryoga s friends were not the first people that she had in mind to meet, but anything was better than hanging around an empty apartment. "And Rei is?"

"He needs me to find the dojo." Rei was quiet, like she d seen something horrible and didn t want to disturb it. And she didn t blink. It wasn t natural. "He has NO sense of direction."

"I hadn t noticed." Obviously she d have to shelve her sarcasm for the duration, it just wasn t effective on these two. "Well, can I come?"

Ryoga nodded. "Sure. Just follow me... um, Rei. Don t get lost. Don t talk to anybody, and whatever you do, DON T take that water pistol."

"What, this?" She poked the little piece of plastic at him. "It s just water." Rather, she pointed it at where he was... he had jumped, straight up, and landed on the roof of the gym. "Hey! Get back here! You afraid you ll melt?"

"He s not fond of cold water." She looked at Rei. If you gave her a lot of credit, that could have been a smile. "Besides, he s always telling me not to shoot people."

Asuka stuffed the pistol back into her bag. Ryoga, seeing that the coast was clear, dropped back beside her. "You re no fun at all, Ryoga."

"Look, like I said, DON T go waving that thing around. Where we re headed, some people would have fought rather than ran from that thing." He was serious.

"You ALL made of snow, or just you and Rei?" Well, a bit callous there, but at least he smiled. "Don t worry, you ll not even know I m there."

What was this place? Asuka had seen some seedy neighborhoods before and this wasn t seedy but she d never seen streets so bad. You could build a house with the chunks of concrete rubble that lined the streets. Walls with holes, potholes you could drown in, downed trees, everything. "What happened here?"

"It s always like this." Ryoga smiled, took in a deep breath. "Nothing beats Nerima."

"Um, Ryoga..." Rei stopped from her position a few feet ahead of the others, looked back. "It s that Kuno person again."

"Don t worry about him, he s harmless unless you talk to him."

The "Kuno" person turned out to be a man wearing some kind of fighting garment, carrying a wooden sword. Tall, not cute but not ugly, and older than Ryoga by a year or so. "Looks fun."

The Kuno looked across the street, spotted them, crossed over. "Ah, noble wanderer, well met are we indeed. I even now withdraw from an encounter with our common foe Saotome... the wretched being who holds the fair Akane thrall to his evil will. Come, and we shall plot to bring together his downfall."

Ryoga yawned. "I don t think so, Kuno, maybe later. I m going somewhere right now."

"And I see that the sylph accompanies you still... I greet you, ethereal one, and promise that should you need assistance, you need only call upon the name of the great Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, Tatewaki Kuno."

Rei looked like she was stunned, which made sense. Did this guy have one clue in his possession? He looked over at Asuka, smiled. "Lovely one, truly is the city a more blessed place with your presence. May the evening sunset be a flower for your hair and the stars a ceiling for your dreams."

"Enough already, Kuno, or I ll tell your precious pigtailed girl that you re making time with other women."

"Dare you mock me, vagrant dog? Then, you shall know the justice of the Blue Thunder!"

What followed next was one of the most bizarre things that Asuka had ever seen... the Kuno thing slashing with his wooden sword, demolishing steel pipes and concrete barriers with ease. And Ryoga, he was all over, jumping up and around, parrying the blade, occasionally throwing his own attack back at Kuno.

"Then, if you value not your life, face my ultimate technique! STRIKE!" Wow, but he could really move that bokken. Asuka couldn t even follow the blows. Well, Ryoga needed to be knocked down a peg or two.

"I do not even feel your attack!" Ryoga paused, grabbed his umbrella, swung like a golfer. For some reason, the attack made it through the storm of Kuno s strikes, hit the man squarely in the chest, and continued... Wow again.

"Yes, folks..." Ryoga was speaking into the end of his umbrella. "Another HOME RUN!" He bowed to the two girls. "In case you didn t know, the crowd s supposed to go wild."

"Showoff." Yes, Rei was definitely smiling.

"Isn t he going to die, now? That must be a ten story drop, from the top of that arc."

"Nah, I m not that lucky. Even Kuno knows how to take a fall." Ryoga replaced his umbrella on his pack and fell in behind Rei again. "Get used to that kind of thing."

"What did he mean by all of that?"

"Some day, somewhere, somebody will figure out just what Kuno s thinking... and maybe they ll share with the rest of us. Not that anybody would care." Ryoga bit the end off that sentence. "Besides, he s always harassing Akane."

Hm. An interesting statement, that, especially the last bit. "Akane" was probably that ex-girlfriend that she d heard about from Misato. Very interesting.

Akane sneezed, once. "Darn pollen."

Ranma called out from the yard. "You say something, Akane?"

"No, nothing." She still couldn t believe it. She d asked Ranma what had brought the whole thing on his wanting to get married all of the sudden, when he d fought it tooth and nail for years and he d answered RYOGA. She hadn t understood, so he sat her down, and explained.

About Ryoga s love for her. She hadn t ever noticed it, she d thought that he was just a bit silly, or joking like Ranma did, or just stupid sometimes, but there it was. Ryoga had loved her, and she hadn t noticed. (Well, there was a date or two, come to think of it. But she d just been getting back at Ranma!)

About Ryoga s sense of direction, she knew.

About his new job, she didn t. Of course, it was a crock of bull. No sane person would POSSIBLY put Ryoga into a robot cockpit. By himself, he caused more property damage than any single person Akane could recall. And he kept wandering off, too.

About his decision... well, it was true, Ryoga could be dangerous to be around. He didn t really know his own strength, he d never been around people enough to learn, she thought. He could hurt her, he d almost hurt her a couple of times. He d beat Ranma up severely a couple of times, too, but that was different.

It was a horrible realization, that somebody could love you SO MUCH that they d have died for you, killed for you, (and that s exactly what Ranma had implied would have happened if the robot had finished that night... fat chance) and you never knew. Never cared...

She heard Ranma spin around, saying, "Hey! Welcome back, P-chan!"

"QUIT calling me P-chan! sneeze Man, the pollen s bad today."

Think of the devil... that had to be Ryoga, now. Akane got up and looked outside, to see Ryoga jump over the fence, followed by his friend Rei. Rei s hand looked all right, thank goodness. Immediately, there was a knock at the door.

"I ll get it, Kasumi!" Akane tugged the door open. Outside stood another young girl, maybe fifteen, with brown hair in two ponytails. "Hello, come on in."

"Thanks." She had a bit of a foreign accent, but Akane couldn t place it. Not Chinese, thank God, she was quite good at that one by now. "Where d the big lug go?"

"You mean Ranma? He s out by the pond..." Wait a second. "Why do YOU want to see Ranma?" Not again, oh no, not again...

"Who s Ranma? I m following Hibiki around." That had a truly ridiculous sound... like saying that Kuno would win a fight with Ranma one day. "You seen him? One moment, I m talking to him, and then he jumps a wall and Wonder Girl follows him."

"Um..." Sweatdrop. "They re in the back too... this way."

The three wandered onto the porch, Ryoga and Ranma rubbing each other s heads, Rei standing there not blinking. She caught Ranma s eye... yes, that was the "here s your chance to tell him" look. She tried to shape a "draw off the other company" look, sent it... there, he d gotten it.

"Hey, Rei, you feel like another lesson?"

"It doesn t involve breaking bricks this time, does it?"

Ryoga snorted. "Just don t hit his skull and you ll be fine."

"Hey! Don t... actually, that s pretty good, Ryoga."

"Heh. Too bad your fighting skills don t match your sense of humor, Ranma."

Now, how could she talk to Ryoga if they kept teasing each other? "Go on, quit it, Ranma."

"Okay, all right already. Let s go, Rei."

The other girl looked at Akane. "He does martial arts too?"

"Yeah." Obviously new in town... everybody knew Ranma.

Ryoga scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, if you thought what I did to Kuno earlier was good, you ought to go watch. Ask him for some roasted chestnuts." Ryoga wasn t usually this subtle.

"That I ve got to see. I ll leave you two alone for a bit, then." The way she d said "you two" made it pretty obvious what she had in mind.

Ryoga puffed up a bit. "Be nice, Asuka. I won t stand for you insulting Akane like that."

"Yeah, quite an insult." She stuck her tongue out, left through the door that Ranma had taken Rei to.

Well, here goes. "So, how s life going, Ryoga?"

"Not bad. It s been really busy lately, though. I haven t been really lost for a while."

She sat down at the table, motioned for him to do the same. Obviously he was trying to keep up a front. "Look, Ryoga... Ranma told me. Everything."

She saw the blood rush from his face, the look of utter betrayal, the eyes open with shock. "E... e... everything?"

"Why? Why didn t you tell me, all of this time? I was your friend!"

That brought him around, almost like a slap would have. He jerked the same way. "I... I... I thought you d... hate me..." His voice was very small. "I was embarrassed... and you wouldn t understand... I just don t..."

"HATE you? Why... I don t love you, Ryoga." That HAD hit him, she could see it going in, see the wound. "But you ARE one of my best friends... and I can talk to you, and you won t call me uncute, or try to make me feel stupid, or..." No, she wasn t going to break down, not now, it would be too cruel in front of Ryoga. "You did so much for me, and Ranma... why didn t you say something?"

He exhaled, a deep sigh that took all the fight from his demeanor. "I didn t know... it was good, it was the best I ever had felt, knowing you, even though you didn t really know, you didn t really care... but I was happy with it for so long. It was all I had, see? And if I said something, did something... it could have ended, and that would have been all. I didn t want to hurt you, that s why, didn t want to make you angry or sad or..." He almost sobbed there. "And I was right, because now you know, and it s over, really over. I made my choice, Akane."

"Ryoga..." He really did love her, then. Maybe he still loved her, sitting there and saying that. "Just because... just because I love Ranma, it doesn t mean I didn t care." His head came up. Something in his eyes... "I DO care for you, and I m sorry. I m sorry that you re hurting like this."

"I..." sob "I ll be okay. I always am. Nothing can hurt me, right?" He forced a smile on his face. It was frightening, like a grinning skull. "I can take anything... survive anything..." And he suddenly collapsed. "except this. But I ll be okay, really. Besides, I can still protect you, make you happy. Me, and Rei, and Asuka. You and Ranma... you ll be happy." He was crying now, tears of sadness.

"I don t know what to say, Ryoga." What did he mean, protect her? And Rei? Asuka? "Can you forgive me, for not knowing?"

"I... I dreamed of this day... and always, it ended with you screaming, hating, wanting to erase me from the earth... and now, this... So much more than what I hoped for... and I m still... Oh God..." He rested his head on his arms and wept. "I m still alone, in the end."

She edged around the table, put her arms around his head. "Not alone, Ryoga. Never alone. Remember that. You can always come here, you know. Even Ranma..." Maybe she d better not mention Ranma now. "You re not alone."

"Th... thank you." He moved his arms, not quite encircling her. "See? I can t even give you a hug... I won t hurt you, not ever. Never hurt you. Never..." He tensed up, gathered himself, and sat up straight, pulling himself from her arms. "Thank you for being here. I ll... we ll protect you, always. You know that. If anything ever hurts you... I ll..."

"You don t need to say it." On the last, his fist had curled into the table, through the wood. He really wasn t human, she thought, not all the way. It was a pity... he was so good-hearted, and now... "Come on, cheer up. You ll find somebody too, you know. You re quite popular with women now, I ve noticed."

He looked at her as if she d gone insane. "Huh? I... um..."

"You know, those two you came with." Well, he was still good old Ryoga.

"What, Rei? Asuka? They re not..." He giggled. Ryoga, huge juggernaut of physical force, giggled. "They re Eva pilots... not... that."

Eva pilots? "What do you mean, Eva pilots?"

"We pilot the Evangelions. You know, big robots, fight Angels, blow up your classroom the other night?" His eyes narrowed a little. "I thought Ranma told you everything."

"Yeah, well, I could believe the other part, but you a robot pilot? Come on, it s pretty far-fetched."

"Don t I know it." For some reason, he seemed relaxed now. "Anything else he told you?"

"No, just... he respects you. I think he has some kind of idea what you re going through. I think I do."

"No." He moved his gaze away. "No, you don t know, and you ll never have to, and you re better off that way. But... he loves you, and now there won t be any more of this fianc e nonsense and he can take care of you. And I ll take care of everybody."

"Thank you, Ryoga." She grabbed his hand, squeezed it. He tensed again, but didn t twitch the hand at all. "It really means a lot to me, you know. Thank you... for giving him to me." Or the reverse, more likely, but she didn t want to think that way. "I never really thought about it before. A house... this house, probably. Me, him, maybe a kid. A pet pig, too." She laughed at the last.

His hand clenched, hard enough to hurt, a little. "No, no pig. P-chan... he won t be coming back, Akane."

What did he mean by that? "You know where P-chan is?"

"Something like that." He let go of her hand, pulled off a bandana and wiped at his eyes. "He s... happier now, really."

Oh, no... nobody EVER used that phrase unless... "You ve never lied to me, Ryoga." He flinched at that too. "He s dead, isn t he?"

She didn t expect that reaction. First incomprehension, then shock, then... he smiled. "No, he s not dead... not dead at all. He s just... away, like I always used to be." He was grinning like an idiot now. "That s exactly it, I ll bet."

"Whew. I was worried about him, you know." That brought him back down a bit. "Well, I m glad that all of that is out in the open, then. Thanks, really, for all of this. You re coming to the wedding, right?"

"I have to." He chuckled. "I m supposed to be the best man, I think."

She stood up. "Better go check on Ranma... he ll probably break something showing off to those two."

"Good idea, that. Let s... let s go." He grabbed his pack from the side of the door, started walking toward the dojo. Standing much straighter then when he came in, she noticed. If Ranma hadn t been there, or hadn t been Ranma... but no. Ryoga, though, he deserved to be happy. Maybe... and she was... oh my. That just might... oh my indeed.

Urk. Ryoga couldn t remember EVER hurting like that. Not in the Eva, not in training, not after getting beat within an inch of his life. Like ripping your soul out and sewing it back in... but she cared. At least he could be happy with that... she really did care.

He ducked into the Tendo Dojo, expecting to see Ranma doing some incredibly over-the-top martial arts display... and wasn t disappointed. He was practicing on one of Akane s dummies, kicking, punching, and moving almost faster than Ryoga could follow. Rei was watching with interest, Asuka with awe.

"Hey, Ranma, don t slow it down for them or they ll never pick up the technique..."

"Well, if you say so..." He paused, changed his footing, then attacked. The speed technique he was so proud of simply annihilated the head of the dummy in an explosion of straw... then the arms... then the chest and wooden frame.

Asuka swallowed, loud. "Uh... what exactly was that?"

"Little something I picked up a couple of years back. Nice, huh?" Ranma stretched one arm out to the side. "Fairly effective, too, right Ryoga?"

Huh. "In your dreams, Ranma. That couldn t take Mousse out, much less me."

Rei went over, picked out another dummy, set it up over the remains of the last one. What was she thinking... Ryoga recognized the stance immediately. Definitely the same as Ranma s. She narrowed her eyes, pulled back, and started... well, she was TRYING to do the technique. She was fast, yes, but the fists were all wrong, and if he could see them, she was going pretty slow too.

"Hey, not like that..." Ryoga tapped her on the shoulder, gestured, took her place. "Now, I never could pull that one off, I don t have half the speed that it takes, but the fists I can help with. You take your hand," he held his own up, clenched it tightly, thumb outside the wrapped fingers. "Do it like this, and it won t hurt you when you hit something."

Asuka wrapped her own fist, and slugged him on the shoulder. Not really slugged, more like a pat, but she was shaking her hand like she d thrown all of her weight into it. "Liar! That hurt like hell!"

"I m not a straw dummy, you know."

Akane walked into the room. "How s it been going?"

Ranma edged next to her. "Rei s got something going... she learns pretty fast, you know, but she s got no training and not much conditioning. Even if she did learn it, one round of it would tire her out completely. The other one, she s hopeless."

"I heard that!" Asuka reached behind her, produced a fair-sized mallet, whapped Ranma on the head. She dropped the mallet, staring at it in horror. "Where the heck did I get that from?"

She shook, a little, as Akane walked over, picked up the hammer, and tossed it behind her... into... he never could tell where they went when Akane was done with them. "You stop asking after a while."

This wasn t going very well, Ryoga thought. Maybe it would be better to leave for home now... before dinner, at any rate. He didn t feel up to trying Akane s cooking today, and didn t want to risk it in any case. "Come on, guys, we ve got to go."

Rei looked up at him. "Why? It s still early."

How had Akane and Ranma worked out that earlier? He couldn t read their looks, although that had to have been it... he tried his best "trust me" look on Rei, and said, "Yeah, but we ve got to get home before Misato has a chance to remember that it s her night to cook, right?"

Rei looked confused. Oh, well, he hadn t really expected it to work. "If you say so..."

Ranma bounced a dummy fragment off of Ryoga s forehead. "What, worried that she ll get lonesome or something?" His face didn t quite match the words, like he was thinking about something... "YOW! COLD!" Ranma whirled around... and displayed a joyous Happosai attached to her rear.

"Ah, Ranma, so good to see you again."

Asuka s eyes bugged. "What, what, what the hell is that!"

"You mean the girl or the pervert?" Rei was smiling, much more than usual.

"I mean... what do you mean? That... wasn t Ranma a GUY?"

Ryoga scratched the back of his head, chuckling. "That s... a bit hard to explain. Yeah, Ranma s... a guy."

"Doesn t really look like it, does... he?" She pointed over at Ranma, who had just kicked the withered but oversexed Happosai through a window.

Akane gestured to the window. "Honestly, Ranma, I wish you d stop encouraging him like that."

"ENCOURAGING him? I couldn t possibly... argh! What did I do to deserve this?"

"You want a list?"

"See? His hair s red, and he s got... you know! This is really odd, even for you, Ryoga."

"Not odd for Ryoga." Rei was laughing out loud by now, even if it was quiet laughter.

He shot a look at Rei. Venom, he could communicate. "Quit teasing Asuka like that, Rei..." He made for the door. "Ranma, you d better not go out like that. YOU know what kind of perverts wander around here."

"Just one that I know of."

Akane snorted. "Two, I thought."

"Yeah, there s Kuno to think about."

"Oh? That makes three."

Ranma did a double take. "Akane..."

"Except maybe you should count double, since..."

Rei was REALLY laughing now, like she was going to hurt something. "These guys are great. How come nobody at NERV is like that?"

Well, she hadn t ever had to LIVE with them. "Just be thankful, Rei."

Ritsuko put the finishing touches on the last battle reports. Not much, really, since it hadn t been on land. Mostly damage repairs to drain all of the salt water out of Eva 02. They really hadn t designed for that problem.

She felt a pair of arms drape over her shoulders. "Hello, Ritsuko. I sense... that you ve been enduring an unrequited love."

"How could you guess?" She hadn t heard that voice in years... not since college, maybe.

"Because a woman with a mole in the path of her tears..." Kaji shifted in front of her, "is destined to a life full of them."

"Not a good time, Kaji." She punched her terminal off.

"And why is that?"

"Because Misato s right there."

He looked up, shrank back a bit. As well he might! Misato was standing at the window, with a very menacing, very unforgiving expression on her face, and what would have been two jets of steam coming from her nostrils if life were less serious. As it was, it was only fog on the glass... she opened the door. "You shameless pig! Here for what, a day now? Two? And you re already rutting around."

"Now, now, that s not fair, Misato-chan. Besides, you re not jealous, are you?"

"Damn right I m not." She dropped a stack of paper on Ritsuko s desk. "I ll talk to YOU later." Turning, she stormed out of the office.

"My, she hasn t changed at all, has she?"

Well, no. "Kaji... could I ask you a favor?"

He bowed deeply. "Anything, oh beauteous one. Your wish..."

"Can it." She took a deep breath. "I need you to find somebody for me."

"Why, then, my search is over, for I am here." He smiled, a roguish grin through five days stubble.

"Could you be serious for five minutes, please?" He dropped into the chair next to hers. "Okay, then. Were you told about what happened at the end of the attack on the fifth Angel?"

"No details, although I know the outline." His face turned grim. "I had no idea that Eva could do something so... powerful."

"It wasn t Eva." His eyes widened. "We think it was the pilot." Not just wide eyes... that was full-on shock. "And from how this looks, he almost did it twice. Something stopped him." She paused. "No, somebody. Somebody who knew him, and came running. Somebody who could move faster than I can see... whoever it was, we need her. In case it happens again."

"So..." He was completely serious now. "Any details?"

"No name, or I wouldn t need you. Not much from a physical description. Red hair, one tightly braided pigtail. She was wearing a red silk Chinese shirt and black pants... but they were really loose on her. She... you wouldn t believe how fast she was, she knocked out two technicians and I didn t even see her strike. She can jump at least twenty yards, horizontally."

He let out a long whistle. "Well, if NERV doesn t need her, the Olympic team might. How old? Measurements?"

"Like I had a tape measure handy, Kaji. Old... no, not old at all, maybe not eighteen. Fairly short, five six or so? Shorter? I had other things on my mind, understand."

"So, what do you want with her? A name, address, dossier? Her motivations? Or... something else?"

"No, don t try to... it s not necessary, really, and it might not work either. She... I wouldn t believe that a human was that fast, not if I hadn t seen it."

"Yeah, well, I hear you didn t believe about Ryoga either. You say she knows him? Why don t you ask?"

"He gave an evasive answer to Misato... and that means he s hiding something. I want to know what before I ask him."

"Well, then, I ll give it my best effort." He rose to his feet, bowed again. "If that is all, dear lady, I will away on your quest."

"Kaji, will you EVER stop doing that?"

He chuckled on his way to the door. "Not very likely."

Well, that whole trip had been... not just odd. Bizarre. Completely weird. "All right, I went, I saw, now I need an explanation or two." They were sitting around Misato s table, and she hadn t made it home from work. Asuka had her hand wrapped around a beer, as did Ryoga, while Rei just drank Coke. It figured. "First off... what the... how did he... she..."

Ryoga leaned back. "What, Ranma?"

"YES, Ranma! First question, is he really a guy or a girl?"

"Guy."

"Well, then, what were... how..."

Rei got up, poured herself a glass of water. Who drank Coke and water? She was as odd as the rest of them. "Like this." She took the glass of water... and threw it on Ryoga.

And then Ryoga was gone. Just a pile of clothing on the chair, with something moving inside... Asuka leaned over, pulled a small black pig out of the pile. She held it up by the stupid yellow-and-black bandana. "Well, it s cute, but where s Ryoga?" The pig started twisting around... and... gesturing?... to itself. "What, you mean... YOU RE Ryoga!"

The pig tugged itself out of her hold, jumped back into the clothes, and somehow dragged the entire pile over to Ryoga s pack. It bit open an outside pocket and pulled out a thermos. Then, it crawled back into the pile, and tipped the thermos over...

And Ryoga was standing there again. He wasn t happy. "REI! I can t BELIEVE you did that! What were you thinking?" He was yelling at the top of a particularly loud pair of lungs. "I could have explained it without that, you know." His shirt was on backwards, now.

Rei shrugged. "She might need to know, right?"

"Argh! You could have asked me, at least." He sat down, still annoyed. "Well, do you see now?"

See what? "Not in the least. You were that pig? Nice trick. What does it have to do with Ranma?"

He snorted, amazingly like the pig. "No trick. It s a curse, literally. I fell in a pool at this place in China, and now I m cursed."

Rei sat down again as well. "He was pushed, actually."

"Yeah, well, that happened a long time ago. But now, whenever I get splashed with cold water, I turn into... that. And hot water changes me back."

Well, she had THOUGHT she had seen bizarre things. "And... he does that too?"

"Yeah. I fell... was pushed into the Spring of Drowned Pig, he fell into the Spring of Drowned Girl. He definitely got the better half of that one."

"Wow." Asuka digested that for a moment. "Okay, so that explains how she... he changed. How did he do that," and she moved her fists back and forth, in parody of his technique, "so quickly?"

"Wish I knew. It s a trick he picked up from Cologne... ah, an old lady in the neighborhood. It s effective, too."

"And the little guy?"

"Happosai. World s biggest... well, most lecherous man. Also the original master of Anything Goes Martial Arts, or at least the branch that Ranma uses. Stay away from him, he s bad news."

"And... the hammer?"

Ryoga looked surprised. "You mean you don t know? Akane s been doing that... ever since I met her, I think. I always wanted to ask, but... well, you saw, right? I don t really understand myself."

That explained everything. It must be some kind of weirdness sink, where everything turned weird. The only rational explanation. Well, it wasn t rational, but neither was the hammer... "So, the other one, she s your girlfriend?"

All of the poise went out of him like a pricked balloon. "No... she s not, never was. Akane s... getting married to Ranma in a couple months."

No wonder he looked like that. "You liked her, didn t you."

"It was love. Hell, it might still be love, for all I know. But it s over, never really started, and now it s gone."

Rei looked at him. "I still don t understand why you gave up."

Ryoga grabbed his beer can, started squeezing. He crumpled it into a tiny ball with one hand. Hey... that had NOT been an empty can, the beer was squirting all over. "That s why... I don t trust myself not to hurt her, with what I am. So I gave up."

"Well, cheer up. I hear lots of girls go for the muscular type." Asuka blushed into her beer.

"Not that I ve noticed. Besides, it s more than that. I m not... not really human anymore, I ve trained for so long and now... I m a monster."

If there was one thing Asuka couldn t stand, it was a whining man. "You re an Eva pilot, right?"

"Hey, yeah." That perked him up immediately. "I guess I am. That s something, then."

"There you go. In with the rest of the freaks." Although, she thought, his friends were much odder than she was. Even Rei seemed normal next to those people.

"Heh. I guess so." He sat up, grabbed a towel from the counter and wiped up the spilled beer. "I m going to get some dinner started before Misato gets here. You re welcome to it."

"Don t mind if I do, then. To be honest, I don t particularly want to go next door. Huge apartment with nothing in it? No thanks."

"Um..." The two looked at Rei. "I could move in... if it wasn t... a... bother or anything..."

"Huh? Why, where do they have you?" Asuka hadn t even wondered about that before.

"You should see the dump they ve got her living in, Asuka. Completely trashed, tiny, run-down and everything. Horrible place to be, I d think." Ryoga turned to Rei. "Shouldn t you ask Misato first, though?"

"Why? I m not moving in HERE."

"Good point." Asuka finished her own beer. "Well, I don t mind, so long as you don t mess the place up or party all night... well, I don t think I have anything to worry about. Of course, you ve got to clean the bathroom."

Rei s eyebrow twitched. "Why?"

"Well, you have to clean one now, so it s not any worse is it?"

Ryoga chuckled. "Well, go ahead then... heck, you can always borrow my sleeping bag if you don t want to drag that bed over here. I don t need it, not unless I get lost or something."

Asuka threw her beer can into the garbage. "Well, then, go ahead, I ll see about picking a room or something. Dinner s how long?"

"Probably half an hour." Ryoga growled as Asuka walked toward the door. "Oh, Asuka?"

"Yeah, now what?"

"If you EVER tell anybody about my curse, or splash me with cold water..." His eyes flashed in the light. "I ll do to you what I did to that can, but slower. Got it?"

"Okay, okay, no talk, no water, got it." That would explain why he d been so antsy about that water pistol earlier, she supposed. "I ll be back later, then."

Ryoga slipped the headphones on and relaxed. It was surprising, really, how much better he felt. Maybe it was the music... Misato had given him a tape with the walkman. It was English and he didn t understand the lyrics well, but it was soothing. Well, no, it was rock, but it soothed him anyway.

He reminded himself to thank Ranma for his unusual definition of "everything". For a second, he had thought that Akane knew about the curse, and man that would have been a completely different story now, wouldn t it? But no... she didn t know... and she did care.

For some reason, it didn t hurt as bad as it had the week before. When she hugged him... normally something like that would have turned his brain off and sent him into hallucinations. Normally. Now, it didn t have that effect. It was like... he was getting over it. A clean break. No, a really nasty ragged tear, more like. But still, a separation.

*[Yeah, you ll get over it, kid.]*

Oh, great. He was still hearing voices. At least it wasn t telling him to kill people or anything...

Ryoga turned over and pulled the cover over his body. Damn, but it was good to sleep on a futon.

End of part nine

Questions, comments, flames go to akent

Next time: Heh... NOT what you expect. 


	10. Chapter 10

Rei closed the door to her old apartment. Ryoga had said that she didn t have to go back, that he would gladly retrieve all of her possessions... as if he could possibly get there without her. Still, though, he could always carry everything home. He owed her one.

She watched as Ryoga walked into the main room. For some reason, he was walking more lightly than normal, almost like he was sneaking around, but nobody was there. She didn t understand him, or why he did things, or why he said things. Well, some things.

He dropped his pack and looked around. "Uh... Rei, what exactly do you want to take?" He gestured at the bed, the drawers, and the small refrigerator. "I mean..."

"Here." She stepped in, opened the closet, pulled out four school uniforms. One of the drawers would have her socks and undergarments. She had her shoes on, and school shoes were at school. The bed was too heavy to take, even for Ryoga. What else... She walked over to the drawers, picked up the glasses case. After thinking for a second, she added a small Tokyo Tower to her pile. "That s it, let s go."

"Wow. I thought I didn t have much stuff." Why did he look at the pile like that? At least she knew he was uncomfortable, he never scratched the back of his head unless he was uncomfortable. He opened his backpack and shoveled the contents inside. "Anything in the kitchen?"

"Just fixtures." Rei suddenly realized that she had NO idea how to cook. It had never been a problem, of course, she just ate at school and at NERV. The first, because everybody else ate, and the second because Gendo got worried when she didn t eat.

"No sweat, then." Ryoga hefted his bag and headed for the door. "Come on, we don t have all day, you know."

She followed him out of the apartment and shut the door behind her. Something else, something... she reached out and removed the paper with her name from the door frame. Well... that was that.

Paradise Lost, part 10 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax -  
Ah... nothing like a relaxing bath. Ryoga sat back in the tub and reflected on the world, and how it might NOT be the worst of all possible things. After all, he was happy, right?

He listened, not interested, at the sounds coming from next door. Asuka was making the apartment s decoration a full-time job, helped by the fact that Rei honestly couldn t care less about it. It had been what, a week? She still was trying out different pictures and furniture layouts and such.

After enjoying the heat and quiet for a few more minutes, he hauled himself up, toweled off, and got dressed. Now, he could... what? School was over for the day. He wasn t going to see anybody, Rei had something to do at NERV, so he couldn t go anywhere. He d given up on the television as a source of entertainment. He could read a book... but he didn t have any and Misato wasn t exactly inclined towards that sort of thing. And he couldn t GO get one either.

Argh! This had never been a problem before. One thing about being lost for ninety-five percent of your life, you never got bored. Maybe some martial arts practice? No, the furniture isn t up to it. Exercise? No, same. Well, he could always twiddle his thumbs for an hour or two... sigh.

Wait a minute... He remembered the pounding noises he had heard a few minutes ago. Asuka was home. Ha! Something to do. He opened the apartment door and grabbed his pack. Wait. Why take the pack? Father said never forget your pack. Why not... right, if he went out the door, he might not get back.

A mental challenge, then. How could he get next door without getting lost? The map that Misato had drawn him wouldn t do any good, and besides it looked like something a three-year-old had done. She HAD been pretty drunk, though. He could always tie a bit of string to his door and find his way back that way... no, too risky, with his luck he d get the string snipped...

How did he find ANYTHING? Dumb luck? No, wait, he could get somebody to take him there. But Misato and Rei were at work, and if Asuka were there, he wouldn t have to go next door. Touji? Kensuke? Nah, they weren t there either.

A penguin waddled between his legs and headed for the apartment to the left. Ha! Penpen could always take him. Of course, that was assuming that Penpen knew the way to the apartment... oh well, it would be better than being bored. He took a few steps toward the penguin. Now it was... pecking, he supposed, at the door to the next apartment. Either it was Asuka s, or the old curmudgeon next door, who come to think of it would be pretty fun to annoy too.

Asuka opened the door, looked down. "Hey, Ryoga." Wait... she was talking to the penguin. "Come in, you moron, I ve got hot water." HEY!

"That s NOT funny!" He scooted into the door before Asuka could close it. "Since when do I look like that!"

"Well, I have seen a short black pig around here somewhere..." She didn t have to laugh like that. Mocking laughter. Ranma s laughter. He felt something tighten, curl around itself in him... no, wrong, she s a girl and you don t hit girls. He gritted his teeth and resolved to put up with it.

"So..." He set down his pack and walked into Asuka s and Rei s apartment. It looked much nicer, now that Asuka had added some furnishings. Little tables, recliner, lamps, pictures, a really nice effect overall even if it was a bit Western. "I like the place."

"SO glad you approve." She flopped into the recliner, and he sat down on a throw pillow. "What are you doing over here?"

"Bored, mostly."

"YOU? Bored? Your life is so weird that it shouldn t be possible for you to get bored, Ryoga."

Weird? Well, he didn t exactly have a reference... it was much more normal than Ranma s life, for example. "Yeah, yeah, well it is, okay?"

She sat back. "Come to think of it, I m bored too. Well..."

Ryoga felt an inexplicable sense of dread come over him. It was exactly the same sense that he got whenever something was about to hit him, or even more like the sense he got whenever he was about to be splashed with cold water in full view of Akane (the thought hurt) except for the fact that it was TOTALLY unlike those two feelings. He didn t understand it and it frightened him.

"Here, you can tell me what the hell is going on around here."

And suddenly the sense went away. Normal. What had that meant? "Well, there s these things called Angels, and..."

She threw a pillow at him. "Stupid. I mean the OTHER things."

"Well, Misato drinks a lot, and..." Good thing she didn t have any more pillows to throw... she lifted a glass. "What sort of things?" he asked in a much smaller voice.

"I mean, YOU. How come you re so messed up?"

He wasn t aware that he WAS messed up, thank you very much. "Care to be a bit more specific?"

"Okay... Rei told me about the pig thing, she nearly busted a gut laughing about it. I thought she was really cold... although I can t blame her, it s funny as hell!"

"NO IT S NOT FUNNY AT ALL. Do you have ANY idea what it s like being a pig?" He realized how stupid that sounded. "Imagine if somebody took away everything you were, made you into something that by definition could not even BE what you were. In one swoop, everything that makes you a human... except the ability to realize the change. It s... if I had the water from the pool I fought in, I would pour it on the ground. If I had the cure, I would give it to anybody... even somebody I hated. It s the most horrible thing that has EVER happened to me."

He looked up at her, saw the shock in her eyes. She was looking... at his hand. He glanced down, saw the hand, curled around a chunk of the floor. Didn t even notice, he thought. Tore up her nice carpet and didn t even notice. "Um... sorry about that. It s kind of a sensitive point."

Asuka snapped out of her trance. "Right... well, nobody likes being laughed at, I suppose. Well..." She looked at the ceiling for a second, as if she were seeking divine inspiration. "How about getting lost? I mean, why?"

"Wish I knew... for some reason, my father, my mother, none of us have any sense of direction. I get lost... THAT I m used to by now, it s been going on for so long that it s all I know how to be."

"So, that s why you carry around the pack and umbrella and everything?"

"Er, mostly. The umbrella has another use, which I shall have to hurt you severely if you laugh at again. Plus, when you can t find your home, you have to take it with you."

Asuka got up, disappeared for a second. Headed for the entry, he saw. She came back, dragging his backpack. "Oof. This, Ryoga, is truly heavy. Mind if I take a look?"

"Um... no." Of course, he couldn t imagine why she would want to take a look... and normal paranoia didn t usually stop him.

She flipped back the top, rummaged through the contents. "Hm... clothes, clothes, bathing supplies..."

"Of course, given the circumstances..."

She nodded absently. "Thermos. Makes sense, I suppose..." She flipped it to him, he caught it with both hands. Carefully, now... he cupped it as if it were porcelain.

"Hey, this was a gift, be more careful with it, will you?"

"Sure..." She still was paying more attention to the pack than him. "Hot water kettle. Field kit... matches... what s this?"

Oh, the tent. "It s a tent, dummy."

"NO way this is a tent. It must weigh what, two pounds?"

Like he cared what it weighed... but it was really small, and that was important. "Western style tent... a couple of campers gave it to me. There was this boar, see..." She started chuckling. "Well, it keeps the rain off, right?"

"Heh. Yeah, we all know how important THAT is... first aid kit. Hey, this thing s never been used, you know."

"Well... I don t know any first aid anyway." HE never needed it. Come to think of it, he didn t know anybody who knew first aid, except maybe Dr. Tofu. Why? Nobody ever needed it or anything.

"I won t ask... hey, what s this?" She pulled out a waterproof packet. NO wait, no don t open it up Asuka you dummy Ryoga can t believe you let her see... "HEY!" Oh, damn. Asuka s eyebrows twitched like hummingbird wings. "Exactly what do you have THESE for, anyway?"

Think fast, Ryoga, or she ll be out for blood... "Trade goods." As if she d believe it. "Not everybody takes yen, you know. I can always find SOMEBODY who ll swap one of those for a meal and a place to sleep, though." He braced himself.

"You re still a pervert." She slid the photographs back into the pouch. "Isn t that..."

"Uh... yeah."

"You know, if I tell her... him about these, he won t be happy."

THAT would be an understatement. "Look, it s not like I look at the things. Can YOU think of anything that would work better?"

"That doesn t matter!" She chewed her lower lip for a moment, then continued. "Alright, maybe it does matter. Still, it s perverted."

Whew. She still had that glass of water handy, though... "Just put the things away, all right? I m not proud of them, but I ve got to eat just like everybody else."

"Pervert." She replaced the packet in the bag, continued rooting through its contents. "Ah, now here s something." She pulled a small leather pouch, opened it. Inside were layers of tissue paper. "Must be important." Well, she would have found it anyway, maybe if he didn t make a fuss then she would ignore it and go on...

Inside the tissue was his picture of Akane. She d given him one, he couldn t remember exactly how long ago, it had been school picture day. He still warmed a bit from the thought that he had rated a picture... well, not so much as he used to. The frame was silver, a little something he d found in Shinjiku one day. It had been worth the cost.

Asuka examined the picture, narrowed her eyes. "She means a lot to you, then..."

He sighed, and the remaining good mood brought on by his bath left. Nothing left but a cold chill, really. "Everything." No need to say more, how he felt, how he grieved.

"Yeah, I saw you two over there." Eep. "Like nobody was going to notice that you went and talked with her at the dojo. Actually, I m not sure that anybody else DID notice... that Ranma, he s not too bright, is he? And Rei..."

Well, not even Ryoga really could read Rei, so far. "She didn t SAY anything..."

"Well, then, what s her name? Oh right, Akane, I remember."

"Yeah." It was such a lovely name, too.

"So, you dating her?"

Heh? Mental note: Asuka s not as good at reading people as she thinks. "No..." Depression laced his voice. "No, she s getting married pretty soon."

"Really? To who?"

REALLY not that good at reading people. "Um... Ranma."

"WHAT?" Asuka s face twisted into a horrible, laughing grimace. "HAH hee haa heh hum. Hoo. Oh, wow, now THAT S something. Can you imagine..." Whatever she was imagining, the thought sent her into another fit of laughter. If she kept it up like that, she d fall out of her chair.

Suddenly, the reference hit him with almost physical force. She couldn t be thinking THAT... come to think of it, he couldn t be thinking that either. The very thoughts were repulsive... "And you call ME a pervert! That s... argh it s not JUST gross, it s... Oh, man, I can t handle this. You..."

She snickered for another second or two, then petered out. "Sorry... but it just happened. Mental flash." She actually looked apologetic. "Didn t mean to rub salt in the wound or anything."

Now what was she referring to? No, don t think about it, it s probably more perverted... argh! Meditation. That s what he needed, meditation, that would drive the twisted thoughts from his head. Yeah, he should go and meditate. "Never mind, all right?"

"Okay, okay. So, what else? Old girlfriends?"

"No, no girlfriends. My lifestyle, it doesn t exactly suit itself to long relationships."

"Well, sure."

He forced a grin onto his face. "Your turn, Asuka. Air out the dirty laundry. Boyfriend?"

She laughed. "Sure, Kaji, of course."

Kaji? Oh, right, that guy. He seemed pretty cool, although Ryoga knew that he was not exactly the best judge of that sort of thing. "He s old enough to be your dad." Not precisely true... probably.

"Moron. I m not serious, it s just kind of fun. He is really cool, though, don t you think? AND he s a real Renaissance man, too. A little bit of everything."

"Really, what?" Hey, this was working... he had successfully changed the subject! He made a mental note to remember the technique.

"Well..." Asuka s eyes were not exactly focusing. "He s a pilot. Not Eva, of course, but jets. And he writes. AND he s a master of Kendo."

With those muscles? Ryoga knew all of the major schools of martial arts well, and Kaji didn t have any of the marks of a Kendoist. His walk, his tone, his rhythm were all wrong. He did have some calluses, though. Come to think of it, they didn t really ring any bells. "Self-styled?"

"Yeah... hey, no fair, don t insult him when he s not here."

Ryoga scratched the back of his head. "Uh, no, I mean is it his own style? As opposed to any of the major schools."

Asuka gave him a flat look. "Like I would know? Ask him, if you re interested, maybe he would teach you."

"Hah. Not gonna happen. I don t need a teacher."

"What, are you self-styled too?"

Come to think of it... "Yeah, I guess so. Dad, he taught me a little, when I was a kid, and every day was like practice, for years. Then, I met Ranma, and we ve been fighting ever since, so I just sort of picked it up. I seriously doubt there s a school of umbrella combat out there."

"Sure there is, just no students." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Where d you get that thing, anyway? Not off the rack somewhere."

The umbrella? "I met this civil engineering guy a few times. For some reason, I keep bumping in to him... he taught me a lot. Computers. He made the umbrella from some broken tank bits in a scrap pile. Even taught me the Shishi Hokodan."

"Say what?"

"Uh... did you hear about the fight with the fifth Angel?"

She nodded. "Yeah, the big octahedral one. You mean..."

He remembered... sorrow like he d never felt it, power like he d never dreamed of... "Yeah... THAT was the Shishi Hokodan. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Nice trick, right. You got any more?"

He grinned. "One or two, maybe." No sense in warning her.

"Right, sure you do." She laughed. "You want some lunch?"

"Sure, what do you have?" She favored him with a look. "Oh, right, you want ME to cook something. I can t cook in here, you ll have to take me home first."

"It s right next door, dummy. Just go and call me when it s ready."

Well... considering what usually happened when he stayed somewhere for a long period... he walked next to the wall, concentrated, paused. "Um... it is this way, right?" No sense in blowing out the exterior wall.

"Yeah, but the door s THAT way, Ryoga."

Wonder of wonders. "Good, stand back." He found his center, the fragment of his soul where nothing moved... he felt himself, the floor, Asuka (her aura was jagged, almost spiky), the wall... He drew back, careful not to disrupt his concentration, the flow of awareness... and... now.

Asuka saw Ryoga standing in front of the wall. "Um... there s no door connecting the apartments, Ryoga." He wasn t listening... what was he doing with his hand? It went back, and the forefinger stiffened while the rest curled... he flashed it forward, poked the wall. "Yes, THAT wall, NOT door, stupid."

He turned around, grinned. "Really?" And the wall behind him blew outward, dozens of fragments peppering the floor and walls. She didn t catch any herself, his body blocked them, but some of the paintings would need replacement. "Door."

He promptly turned around two times and headed for her bathroom. Immediately, he stuck his head around the corner. "Um... which way did you say it was again?" The dummy.

Ritsuko stared at her papers. She had seen the results of the pilot ego barrier waveform readings before, noticed the differences between Ryoga and Rei... and promptly chalked them up to age and sex differences. Looking at Asuka s, though, she had other thoughts.

The ego barrier waveform was, for lack of a better descriptive term, a manifestation of the individual s sense of identity. It didn t really mean anything, but they looked really scientific and made great wall decorations, so she had kept them around.

She looked at Rei s, Asuka s, then Ryoga s. In the first two, a certain topographical component was completely missing... almost like a pie with a single slice removed, but not quite. The regularity was incredible, no two ego barrier waveforms had ANYTHING in common, except for Reis ... but this was different. The same chunk missing, twice.

It could be the something that let them pilot an Eva, for all she knew. After all, the act of piloting was sort of like a consensual hallucination of the senses, a transfer of self... maybe Gendo and his "original sin", too.

She then flipped to Ryoga s. It didn t have the irregular chunk missing. In fact, there was so little on the paper that she d checked the ink in the printer the first time. What WAS there was an exquisite filigree of lines... an almost insubstantial personality, totally clashing with what she knew of the boy. Heck, even Rei had a nice healthy ego.

She matched up the drawings. Yes... nothing on Ryoga s in that section missing from Rei s and Asuka s readings. Whatever had happened to Ryoga, it allowed him to pilot Eva as well. She shook her head. With such a fragile ego barrier, it was a miracle that he maintained a physical form at all...

Time to test the hypothesis. Ego barrier waveform patterns were one of the standard data collections kept on NERV personnel. Her own, first... normal, and pretty cool looking, to boot. Misato s... Maya s... Aoba s... Hyuuga s... Futuyuski s... everybody s was different, but no missing pattern in any of them.

As a lark, she looked up Gendo s waveform.

[classified]

Huh? It didn t make any sense to classify a waveform, it was an essentially useless piece of data... well, it had been. She tried pulling up a full file on him. Name, residence, physical statistics... the whole thing WAS rather sketchy, come to think of it... standard psychiatric evaluation, missing. No surprise there. Medical data... medical history... known background, damn little. Ego barrier waveform... classified.

She shivered, the kind of feeling that you get when somebody walks on your father s grave. Gendo knew something and hadn t told her. It was hardly the first time, of course, but she had always known WHY the other times... and did she now?

"We re losing her, Gendo. The move, the classes, she s not the same person."

Gendo looked up from his tea. He didn t get out enough, that was true. And now, with a couple weeks before the schedule really got tight, he was taking the opportunity to relax and recuperate. Nothing like a nice cup of tea to unwind. He had always loved Osaka... the best place in the world to get lost for a week or two.

"Um... Gendo?"

"Sorry, Futuyuski. You were saying?"

Futuyuski sipped his own tea. "Rei. She s not the same Rei that we d planned on."

"Of course not, moron. Things change, people change, times change. I would be a fool if I didn t expect her to change, not with what s happening. The key is to adapt to the changes, use them to reinforce the plan instead of disrupting it."

"Yes, but these changes... she s taking initiative, now. Asking things. Almost demanding things. You will have to take it into account, you know."

"I know... she s a human, isn t she? I can t get away with treating her otherwise, not any more. Ah..." He sipped at his tea. Good tea. "We re all human." Very good tea.

Futuyuski opened his mouth, was cut off by his cellular phone. Didn t the idiots at the office know what he meant when he said that he wasn t to be disturbed? Damn, now he was tense again, he d have to visit the onsen after his tea to relax.

Eyes. Futuyuski s eyes NEVER opened like that. Shock. Unexpected shock. Did Ryoga kill Aoba or something? Loose cannon, and dangerous to the Plan, of course, but Gendo was proud of him. Ryoga didn t take any nonsense, he was truly a man among men.

"Gendo... an orbital satellite... they ve spotted an Angel."

He sprayed half of his mouthful of tea onto the table and nearly choked on the other half. "No..." The implications were clear. "Tell Captain Katsuragi to handle it." She should be able to, she was still far short of her stress points and competent as hell to boot, but... "No more trips to Osaka, Futuyuski."

"Too bad... I love the tea here." Futuyuski grinned, almost, as he wiped the spray off of his side of the table. He wasn t good at grinning...

Misato grabbed at a cup. Coffee. She needed coffee. And quick! Ah... even cold, the caffeine felt good going down. Her nerves were shot. Two hours ago, something had taken out an observational satellite. Pattern blue: an Angel. How could they fight something that was is SPACE?

Ritsuko gestured to Aoba, and the screen changed. It showed a projected orbital path, although the whole thing was fuzzy... since that first contact, they hadn t picked up any sign of the Angel s presence. The only evidence that it was still there were three meteor impacts.

"So, it s going to bomb us?" She hadn t planned on this kind of attack, in which close combat skills would be useless.

"I suspect not." Ritsuko gestured again, and the image changed to show dozens of calculations. Potential energy played a big role, but most of it was too detailed for Misato s mind to follow. "The first three drops were probably to familiarize itself with targeting and such. Likely, it will simply fall on top of this command center."

Well, that couldn t be too bad. "So..."

"You see that bottom line?" Um... Ritsuko must mean the one with the energy release approximation.

"What, only ten thousand joules? That s not enough to penetrate the first layer of armor." Why was Ritsuko s eyebrow twitching like that?

"Misato, those are terajoules."

OH. Now that was a different thing altogether. "I don t think we could survive that."

"I don t think we can shoot it out of orbit, not without the ability to spot it precisely, anyway."

Well, if you can t shoot it... Misato grinned. "We ll use Eva to catch it, then."

Maya piped in from the sidelines. "Um, Misato, that could seriously damage Eva. Not to mention the difficulty in catching something moving that fast, when we can t spot it or tell where it s going to land..."

"Work it out, people. Anything s better than letting the city get leveled, right?"

Ritsuko sighed. "I thought you d try this. All three of the Magi give a success rating of less than one hundredth of one percent, though."

"That means it s over six orders of magnitude more likely than turning Eva on in the first place, and we managed that."

Asuka stared at Misato. They were in the central briefing room, her, Misato, Rei, Ryoga. She had to have lost it. Totally crazy. Asuka had suspected, yes, but here was proof. "You mind repeating that?"

Misato grinned. "Well, we figure that around eighteen thirty, the Angel will hit somewhere in downtown Tokyo-3. Before that happens, we want you guys to go catch it."

Rei blinked, twice. "Using the AT field?"

"Yeah, I know, it was designed as a defensive field only, but we really don t have anything else to do the job."

"Where is it going to land?" This time from Ryoga.

"Here s the projected drop zones." Misato thumbed a remote, and a map of Tokyo-3 rezzed into existence on the floor. Over half of it was covered in green. "We don t know exactly where in this area that it will hit, although we can narrow it down the closer it gets to impact."

She was crazy. "So what happens if you guess wrong and it comes down somewhere else?"

"Don t worry, you guys will survive anything in the Eva, near as we can tell."

"And if the Eva can t stop it?"

"We ll be a little put out, then."

Very crazy. Asuka edged herself a bit away from Misato in case it was catching or if she went over the edge and tried to bite or something even worse. "And if something goes wrong?"

"We ll be put out in that case as well."

"What are the chances that this is going to work?"

Misato shrugged. "God only knows."

"Um..." She swiveled her head to look at Ryoga. "How am I going to get there? I, uh..."

"Don t worry, Ryoga-kun, we ve thought of that. Just follow the signs and you ll make it."

Great. The entire plan rested on Ryoga s sense of direction? "You must be kidding, right Misato?"

"No jokes." Misato brightened a bit. "Tell you what... I ll take you all out for a steak dinner after this, okay?"

"Really?" Ryoga... he was virtually slavering. "Well, then, let s go already!"

Misato headed for the door. "We ve got maybe fifteen minutes. Get ready. Rei, make sure Ryoga doesn t run off."

"Understood."

Once Misato had closed the door behind her... "Let s go already? What s with that, Ryoga?" The moron. Bribed by food.

He put both of his hands up, defensively. "Hey, just trying to make her feel better, that s all. Besides, I LIKE steak."

"Um..."

Ryoga didn t turn around. "Don t worry, Rei, I m sure they ll have something besides meat for you."

"But..."

"Or we could go somewhere else..."

Rei looked directly at Asuka. "Do you know how I can get his attention?"

Heh. She d been waiting for this opportunity. Ever since yesterday, she d been wondering... did it only work there? Asuka reached behind her, closed her eyes, willed. As soon as she felt the wooden handle, she began a forward arc, her eyes opening in awe as she opened and directed the strike... and fifteen pounds of wooden sledgehammer made an impression on Ryoga s skull. He went down, hard, with his hands splayed out and making funny warding gestures. "That works for me." Well, now, this could be a useful talent.

"HEY! What was THAT for?" Obviously it was going to take another try... "You LIKE hitting people like that, Asuka?" Ryoga rubbed the back of his head from his position on the floor. "Not that it hurts, really, but it s the idea."

"Stupid. Rei wants to ask you something."

He started and swiveled around. "Yeah?"

Rei stood a few feet back, with a sweatdrop the size of a fist hanging from her short hair. "Do you think you can really find it?"

"Uh... not by myself, no. I m sure Misato figured it out, though."

Rei... was she worried? It was hard to tell, her face kind of looked that way all the time... "She hasn t had to keep up with you." Asuka swore that the corner of Rei s mouth twitched. Once. A few millimeters.

"Why do you ask?" By this time, Ryoga had managed to collect his wits and stand back up. Amazing, how hard one man s skull could be.

Rei pointed to the corner... to the telephone in the corner. "You should tell somebody what you re doing."

"Huh? OH, yeah, right." He wandered over to the door, stopped, then headed to the telephone. He grabbed the receiver off of the handle, dialed eight numbers...

"Ranma! Telephone!" Kasumi s voice brought Ranma out of his fighting concentration. He stopped beating on the wrapped pole in the yard and headed inside the dojo. Hm... he couldn t remember expecting any calls, and almost always they brought bad news, but you never knew.

"Thanks, Kasumi." She handed him the handset and left, headed for the kitchen. He could already smell dinner cooking... ah... no, wait, there was a burning odor too. He remembered that Akane was helping with dinner tonight.

"Hello?"

\"Ranma? Is that you?"/

"RYOGA? Hey! Where are you, man?" That s funny, Ryoga NEVER called.

\"Look, Ranma, you know about what s going on?"/

"Some kind of evacuation or something... I dunno. Why?"

\"Make sure that Akane is all right, okay? This one... it s going to be close."/

"Sure, no problem, man." Figures.

\"No parties or anything, all right?"/

"Got it, no problem, she ll be fine. Go kick some ass."

He could hear Ryoga s relief over the phone. \"Great! Thanks, Ranma. Look, I ve got to go, it s going to happen about six thirty and we ve got to get ready."/

"Sure thing. Good luck."

\"Heh. I ll need it."/ [click] What had he meant by that? Oh well, he was just being paranoid.

Akane stepped out of the kitchen. From the smell, and the fact that she wasn t still wearing her apron, her culinary masterpiece must have self-destructed early tonight. "One of these days, I ll figure out what goes wrong with that... who was it, Ranma?"

"Um..." Tell her? Ah, why not. "Ryoga. He was just calling and saying to be careful."

"He did? How sweet." The way she was looking at him was not her usual "how sweet" expression went... it was more like a "worried" expression. "So, is something really going to happen?"

"Yeah..." An idea formed in Ranma s mind. "HEY! Nabiki!"

"You called?" She walked down the stairs.

Heh. This would be brilliant. "Bet you five thousand yen that the Angel will attack within twenty minutes."

Nabiki s eyes opened up. "Hey, thanks, Ranma. You d never even say something like that unless you KNEW it was going to happen... though I can t begin to guess how... sorry, I have to go, phone calls to make." She turned and went back upstairs, humming something softly.

He felt Akane s hand smack the back of his head, which meant she was only mildly annoyed. "Honestly, you can be so stupid sometimes, Ranma."

"Well, sorry." He gestured up. "You want to go watch?"

"Sure, why not? We ve got an hour before dinner."

Ryoga didn t notice the acceleration as his Eva was launched... instead, he stared at the map. Oh, great... he still wasn t sure exactly how he was going to get to the point. Misato was crazy. That was the only explanation. All the beer and Angel attacks had finally addled her senses. Well, if he didn t make it, that would cease to be a problem.

Akane. She ll be all right, Ranma knows what s going on and he ll get her away, so even if he screwed up then she d still be all right. Ryoga took a deep breath, made deeper by the LCL in his lungs, and tensed. If it was at all possible, he d like to not screw up.

The plan was simple... follow the directions, and use the AT field to catch the Angel. Heh. He stepped Unit 01 forward from the elevator, dropped into a crouch. The timer gave him five minutes of power, which was three more minutes than it would take for the Angel to hit. Plenty of time.

Asuka s face appeared in a communications window. "Think you can handle it, Ryoga?" She wasn t worried. Not Asuka... heck, she could fire off a nasty Moko Takabisha with that level of confidence.

"Um..." Telling the truth was NOT an option here. "Yeah, no problem, it ll be easy. Dinner, right?"

"Of course. Get ready, Ayanami."

Rei s image appeared in another window. "Unit 00 is ready... starting in twenty seconds."

Starting... Ryoga looked up, saw the trail of the Angel on its way down. It was pretty... well, kind of pretty. Just fire and a ball at this distance. Ten seconds. He eased back into a crouch, preparing to take off... he mentally reminded himself that jumping on houses like this wouldn t really do any good and would probably slow him down. Old habits die hard... Two seconds. He hit the power cable release.

Misato s voice came over the intercom. \"GO!"/

Ryoga ran, moving as quickly as he had ever moved. Eva landed one foot after another, destroying sections of pavement on roads. Faster. Straight. Look at the ball of fire... where was the ball of fire?

"Figures." Misato nodded to Hyuuga. "Go ahead, talk him in." At her cue, Hyuuga attacked his keyboard. With any luck, they d be able to get Ryoga there in time... especially if he kept running like that.

"HEY! Which way do I go?" Ryoga didn t dare to stop running, he had to get there, he just didn t know where there was... he passed a billboard with a huge arrow pointing to the left. That was weird... an electronic billboard with an arrow? He had passed it in an instant, and this was no time to go back and gawk.

Another billboard. This one said, "TURN LEFT." Must be for a truck stop. He vaulted it and kept going.

At the speed he was going, he would probably leave Tokyo-3 at this rate, assuming (rightly) that he was going in the wrong direction. Billboard... huh? This one read, "TURN TO YOUR LEFT RYOGA YOU MORON."

OH! Hey, now THAT he could follow. He immediately planted his right foot (creating an oddly-shaped pond in front of somebody s house) and cut left. THERE it was... he kept going, past billboards all saying "GO STRAIGHT DON T TURN YOU IDIOT." He assumed they all were for him.

Akane relaxed. Whatever that thing was, it looked beautiful, leaving a trail of fire across the sky. Naturally, she didn t want to be around when it hit, but it wasn t every day that Tokyo-3 was treated to a free light show. She leaned back, snugging into Ranma s side. Thought about it, then decided to remain.

He was leaning back, looking toward downtown from their vantage point on the dojo roof. "Hey, this looks pretty cool. Remind me to thank Ryoga next time he gets here..."

Ryoga. Had she done the right thing? She still didn t quite believe that he had loved her, over a year, and hadn t said a word about it. Well, maybe once or twice. At least now, he could make a new start of it. Besides, he had a job and home to worry about now.

Ranma started, swiveled his head. She listened, barely hearing a repeated bass beat. It was way too fast for a car stereo, not that anybody with an ounce of sense would drive their car through Nerima, but much louder than anything that could have come from the dojo. She looked back, saw only the top of the dojo s roof...

"Akane, hang on." Ranma latched an arm around her waist. Hey! Just because they were getting married, Ranma thought that he could do things like that without even asking? She instinctively went for a mallet, and started to swing...

...When the mallet was torn from her hands by the wind. She had an impression, neon purple and neon yellow, and then she was hanging on to Ranma against the wind. He had driven a hand through the roof and grabbed something, and after a second they settled down.

"Wha..." She followed Ranma s gaze to see a robot, the purple one, lope its way toward the central city. It was FAST, faster than Ranma could move, faster than the old pervert Happosai at a lingerie sale, faster than... she couldn t even follow its run, now.

Ranma had let go, stood up and waved his arms. "YEEEAAAAHHHH! GO GET EM, RYOGA!" The robot didn t turn around, just kept running. "Heh. Watch this, Akane."

"Um... Ranma..." She managed to get his attention. "Was that really him? I mean, he s going straight there." Which, of course, was the last route Ryoga could possibly take. How could he live with getting lost like that?

"Dunno... maybe they have something in the robot. Hope it works, whatever it is." For a second, he looked worried.

"What, concerned about Ryoga?" Usually, teasing him was a good way to make him forget something, even if it did have the side effect of making him mad. This time, though, he just nodded and waved his arm... which conveniently fell into place on her shoulder. She was too busy watching the retreating form of the robot to notice.

Asuka ran her Evangelion through the city. Straight run, no obstacles, and it really was coming down dead center over NERV. Predictable. She snorted and spared a bit of her attention from running to glance at the map display.

The red dot of Eva 02 was almost to the target point, with almost five seconds to spare. She was going to make it. Rei s 00 was just behind, but still early enough... and the purple dot of 01... was just entering downtown. Maybe ten seconds behind.

She keyed her transmitter on. "Rei, come on, Ryoga s going to be late, late, LATE!" The jerk, screwing up right when they needed him. She cleared the final hurdle, leaping her Eva over a tangle of power lines, and stood directly below the Angel. At this range, she could see it through the re-entry cloud of fire. Day-glo orange, and one big picture of an eye in the center, with lots of round flanges and things. Hideous, up close.

"Come on!" She threw up her Eva s arms, tripped the switch that activated the modified AT field, and braced herself. A second later, Rei s blue Eva joined her, doing likewise. The Angel slowed... paused... and kept falling, although what was hundreds of kilometers per hour was now only a few meters per second.

It was HEAVY. The weight pressed her down, she had to drop Eva to a knee to keep it upright. Misato had said that it would destroy the city if it had hit... She looked at her auxiliary screen again. "Damn, Ryoga, where ARE you?"

He saw the Angel strike the AT fields... Ryoga sprinted for the impact site. No chance of getting lost now; he was almost there, and with all three Evas working, they could stop it. Six more seconds... and Unit 02 dropped to one knee, bending under the pressure. Rei started to give...

Concentrate. Faster. Ryoga forced away thought, focused his whole existence on moving the Evangelion. He could feel its arms and legs, pumped them like he pumped his own... he could feel the Angel. Feel it with his mind...

Inspiration hit Ryoga like a hammer, but he didn t let it disrupt his movements. Twenty more steps... ten... five... he drew back Unit 01 s right hand, stiffened the index finger, shot it upwards with a scream of "BAKUSAI TENKETSU!" as he touched the center of the Angel s eye, through the AT fields...

"WHOA." It had been pretty cool when the Angel had hit the other two robots, Ranma thought, but Ryoga blowing it apart like that was even better. Obviously the Bakusai Tenketsu worked on more than rocks and concrete. Fragments of Angel were flying all over town... including one... that was headed directly for the dojo... "Oh, damn, duck Akane!..." He flung himself over her, cutting off her view of the explosion.

The Angel fragment arrowed into the koi pond, sending steam and water flying everywhere. Ranma stood up (wet! Still male! Oh, of course, it was hot water...) and ducked his head over the eaves. "Everybody all right in there?"

He saw a drenched Soun Tendo, sitting serenely on the porch of the back yard. "Yes, fine, Ranma-kun... lovely sunset, don t you think?" Ranma mentally cringed and straightened up. To think he had worried.

He turned around, and saw Akane... who had a fair-sized mallet in hand. "Exactly WHAT was that for, huh?" He gestured to the still-smoking orange bit of Angel and shrugged. She blinked, thought about it for a second, and tossed the mallet... well, Ranma supposed that it had gone somewhere. "Oh... Thanks."

Gendo arrived at NERV s central office three hours later. Misato intercepted him and Futuyuski on the way to his office. "Have you seen the after-action reports?"

Heh. He had indeed. Fairly clever plan, and somebody had thought of an excellent idea with the billboards... and of course, whatever Ryoga had done to the thing to finish it off, it had been effective. Still, Gendo was unhappy. Actually, on reflection, he was enraged. "Yes. I ll review them with you and Akagi later." From her reaction, he had been not entirely successful in keeping his anger from his voice. He concentrated, attained a center. "Good job, Katsuragi. Keep it up."

They walked directly past her, heading for his office. Futuyuski elbowed Gendo and asked, "Keep it up? What is this, the new Gendo?"

"Well..." The "Effective Personnel Management" books that kept showing up in his mailbox DID say that occasional praise was very effective. "We re not dead." He left off the unspoken "yet".

The door to his office STILL stuck. With a snarl, he kicked it next to the doorknob, forcing it open. "You know what to do. I ll try to get back in one piece."

"But... without the schedule, something could..."

Argh. "That s what YOU RE here for, Futuyuski. If trouble occurs, handle it. If the worst happens, you know what to do... but I certainly can t let them see me like this." He opened the closet (after three tries at the exit and the bathroom, twice) and removed his jacket.

Futuyuski sighed. "Whatever." He turned and left, attempting to close the mangled office door behind him.

Damn them all. Gendo hated being played the fool more than anything else, for all that he was skilled at doing the same. He clenched his teeth. "You..." Conservative business suit was thrown into a wadded pile at the bottom of the closet, followed by shoes. He pulled out a white gi, freshly starched and smelling slightly of mothballs. Soft tabi for the feet. A pack rested on the closet s rack, already packed and waiting. He hefted the bag, opened the top pouch. With something approaching reverence, he withdrew a bandana from the pouch. It was yellow, with a random pattern of black rectangles. Yui s headbands. He tied it around his head, retrieved another and put it on as well. The third he pulled and tied with a single jerk, still loose. He felt the cold fury running through his veins...

Time to vent.

He hit the door at a run, tearing it off of its hinges and throwing it into the corridor. Even given his horrible sense of direction, he could be clear of NERV in an hour, and of Tokyo-3 in two. A week, he thought. I can afford to be gone for only one week... maybe less. He hoped that the field rations he d packed were still good. Gendo hated eating roots only slightly less than he hated being used.

End of part ten

Questions, comments, flames go to akent 


	11. Chapter 11

Misato turned down the hallway. She was fairly familiar with Gendo, angry... but she d never seen him like that. Whatever had set him off this time, it had made him so angry that he wasn t paying attention. She wouldn t have believed it if she hadn t seen it herself.

At least it hadn t been her... not that he had anything to be angry about. They d beaten the Angel, and everything was still in one piece, excepting all the stuff that had little Angel bits hit it. Ryoga had been... quite thorough, hadn t he? All for a good cause.

She reached the elevator and dialed for the hangars. It hadn t been fun getting the three Eva units back in place inside the hangar. The blast right near the center had been pretty bad, and while none of the Eva were damaged, they were left in a tangled heap inside the resulting crater. It had taken two hours of shifting, cranes, and power cables before they could be walked back home.

The doors opened... no, wrong floor. Ritsuko, still wearing her lab coat, stepped inside. "Take a look at these, Misato." She waved a stack of paper. "The AT field readings are incredible! And whatever that thing that Ryoga did was, look here..." She pointed to one spot on a chart. "And here..." Another spot on the same chart. "His synch ratio spiked over ninety percent."

"Amazing." Ryoga had trouble scoring over fifty-seven percent, in practice. So long as he could perform when it was time, though, he d do a good job. "How are the pilots doing?"

"I haven t been down to check on them, yet, but nobody mentioned anything bad..."

The doors chimed as the elevator reached the hangar deck. Immediately, a blue and white blur dashed through the doors, trailing an even bluer and whiter blur. The two turned out to be Ryoga and Rei, both still in their plug suits. Ryoga whirled around, throwing his pack up against Misato, and stabbed at the "door close" button. "Oh, man, come on, hurry up, damn it..."

"WAIT!" Asuka was running down the hall toward the elevator, also still in her plug suit, and carrying... something, the door had closed too much for Misato to see what it was. It must have been heavy; Asuka was running off-balance. The open door turned into a sliver... and jammed on what looked like a piece of wood.

Ryoga slumped down to the floor of the elevator. "Oh, man..."

Sensing an object, the doors opened again, revealing an angry Asuka carrying what looked to be a huge wooden mallet. "You..." Her face was flushed and she was panting from the run. "You can t get away that easy, Ryoga. Now, do you mind explaining EXACTLY what took you so long to get there?" She hefted the head of the mallet, preparing to swing.

Whoa... "Not in here you don t, Asuka." Misato reached over and grabbed the mallet s handle. "Besides, you know perfectly well what took him so long."

"But he pant could have wheeze run faster!"

Ryoga coughed. "Um... no, I was running all out."

Asuka s face reddened even more. "You... you PIG!"

Misato thought that it something fairly mild, as far as insults went. Ritsuko didn t react much... but Rei cracked a smile, even showing teeth, and Ryoga flinched like he d been hit. More than when he got hit. "Don t go there, Asuka." He reached for the handle of his umbrella...

"HEY! That goes for you too, Ryoga. Jeez, can t you guys quit it? You just fought the Angel, for goodness' sake." Misato couldn t understand why those two set each other off like that.

"Sorry, Misato." Ryoga slumped back against the rear wall of the elevator. "Old habit."

"Well, lose it!"

Ritsuko rolled her eyes as she stepped off at her floor, leaving with one of her patented "It s YOUR problem so deal with it" looks.

Hmm... best way to defuse the situation... ah, that s it. "Besides, now we have to find some place to go to dinner."

Asuka relaxed at that and dropped the mallet. "That s right, you owe us a steak dinner."

Yeah, but she hadn t realized how much that would cost her. For all that she was the Operations Manager and the highest ranking officer in NERV, short of Hibiki or Futuyuski, her paycheck was downright puny. "Um... actually, I had something else in mind." Ryoga looked up, turning on his equivalent of puppy-dog eyes. "I read a restaurant review of this one place, and I d like to try it out. It s better for this sort of thing anyway, since it has some vegetarian dishes too."

Rei looked up from her corner of the elevator. "Thank you." She was still grinning a bit.

"Hmpf. My bet is that she s just too cheap to spring for steak, right Ryoga?"

"Cut it out, Asuka."

Wait a minute. "Asuka, where d you get that hammer?"

"Eh heh." She grew a sweatdrop. "I have no idea."

Life, Misato thought to herself, was getting truly weird.

Paradise Lost, part 11 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Gainax or Rumiko Takahashi -  
"I ll take the front seat." Ryoga opened the door of Misato s car and tilted the seat forward, then stepped back to let the other two pilots in.

Asuka started forward. "What makes you think that you have the right to call shotgun after how you screwed up today?"

Screwed up? Hey, they d won. "Well, there s the fact that neither of you are likely to survive if Misato takes this thing into the side of a building... there s no passenger seat airbag. On the other hand..."

She nodded, shivered, and stepped in the car. "I d forgotten about that."

"Post-traumatic stress syndrome. You tend to forget dangerous things." Rei sat next to Asuka.

Misato stepped out of the elevator. "There it goes! Couldn t find the address to the place. Come on, Ryoga." She opened the driver s door to her car and got in.

The next ten minutes were quite possibly the most frightening of Ryoga s life, if you didn t include the times when he was almost cooked and eaten. She must have gone insane. No, there was an engine malfunction and she didn t have any brakes. Maybe there was a bomb in the car and if she slowed down, everybody would have died? Ryoga didn t put much faith in that one.

"Hang on, everybody!" Misato gunned the accelerator as the little blue car vaulted over a low hill... clearing a pothole that would have done well as an anti-armor trench. "Man, but the restaurant had better be better than the roads around here." She threw the emergency brake and sent the car into a sideways skid, throwing Ryoga and Rei against their windows... and stopped directly in front of... Ucchan s. "Doesn t say no parking, so..." Misato got out of the car.

Wha? Huh? Okay, Ryoga, you re stopped, it s over, get out of the car and go have some nice okonomiyaki... he tugged on the latch and opened the door. Rei followed. Asuka clambered out behind her, looked around. "Nice place. Does it serve food?"

Ryoga looked at Asuka. "How can you still be hungry?" Come to think of it, Rei had a decidedly green tint to her tonight.

"Look, I earned this dinner and there s no way that Misato s going to get out of it with a little stunt driving." She opened the door, walked inside.

Misato crossed over from the street side of the car. "What was that?"

"cough Doesn t matter. Let s go." At least Misato had picked a good place to eat. He opened the door and motioned for the other two to go inside. Misato did... Rei didn t.

"Go on, Rei, I m holding the door."

She shook her head. "You ll get lost if you don t go in first."

Heck, she was probably right. Why was he holding the door for Rei anyway? She probably wouldn t understand chivalry either. "Whatever." He stepped inside.

Immediately, he ducked his head and went for his umbrella. The first volley of throwing spatulas went into the door frame. He managed to deflect a second and third off of the open umbrella, risked a peek around its edge. As if he d been warned, he snapped the umbrella short and used it to parry Ukyou s much larger combat spatula. "HEY! What s that for?"

Ukyou grimaced. "As if you don t know, Ryoga." She flipped the oversized cooking instrument onto her back and vaulted over the counter. "Don t worry... I m not THAT mad at you anymore... but you did have that coming."

Rei peeked from around the corner. He turned to her, said, "THAT S why I should have come in last."

Misato hadn t found her seat yet... in fact, she hadn t found her balance yet, judging by the way she was reeling. "Uh, Ryoga, what was that all about?"

"Don t worry, old business. I told you about it already." He sat down at one of the stools at the counter. "Well?"

Asuka plopped down next to him, said, "So I can hit you better" in response to his look. Rei took the end stool, and Misato sat down on his other side.

Ukyou peered at the four of them. "Celebration dinner?"

"Well, yes." Misato turned. "How did he know that?"

"I, uh, kind of told her about my new... job. We ve known each other for a while." Ryoga could almost see the gears turning in Misato s head... there, she d figured it out. Hopefully, she d be tactful, since he really wanted food more than fighting.

"And let me guess, no meat right?" Rei nodded. Ukyou went on to Asuka. "Well, you re new. What do you have in mind?"

"Hm..." Asuka thought for a second. "What s good?"

"EVERYTHING, so long as you order okonomiyaki." He tried smiling at Ukyou.

"Ryoga, you jerk. Cut it out."

"Well, then I guess I ll have the okonomiyaki. Double meat." Asuka rolled her eyes at the ceiling and gave him a look. He had NO idea what the look meant.

"Good then. I KNOW what you want, Ryoga, triple order with triple everything. No telling where you store it all." She looked at Misato. "I take it that you re chaperoning this bunch?"

"Yeah, I m Ryoga s new guardian."

Not like anybody had asked him about it. "Don t take her too seriously. She ll want a standard and beer." Wait a second. "No beer." Wait another second. "Then again, what could it hurt?"

Asuka elbowed him... he thought. Might have been a tap. "You idiot! She s driving."

"It s not going to make any difference."

"What, so now I m a lousy driver? And where do you get off ordering for me? I m the one paying for this."

"Actually..." Ukyou blushed, a bit. "I think Rei took care of it, last time. She paid off your tab." She flipped Rei s order onto a plate and served it to her.

WOW. That had been a lot of okonomiyaki. "How much did you give her, Rei?"

"Ten thousand." Rei took a bite.

"That s a hell of a lot more than my tab, Ukyou."

Now she was really blushing. No... she was just mad. "Well, at least I didn t SHOOT her or anything!"

Misato coughed. "Hey, I thought you said that Rei shot a girl."

"Aagh!" Ukyou placed a hand on the haft of her large spatula. "What the hell do you think I AM?"

"Ease off, Ukyou, she s not from around here." Damn it, not this again.

"You mean..." Misato s face distended from the effort of not laughing. She didn t succeed. In fact, she fell off her stool. "Sorry... chuckle but you understand..." She was laughing so hard that she couldn t talk.

Ukyou crossed her arms over her chest and grumbled. "I can t believe you didn t tell her I was a girl, Ryoga."

How was this HIS fault? "Uh... I did."

"Then how do you explain..." Ukyou gestured at the helpless Misato. "Is she always like that?"

"Uh, just when she s drink... yes." Ryoga watched Asuka dig into her order... she liked it. She was eating it, anyway, and he was almost certain that she would have said something if she hadn t. He barely tasted his own, as usual.

Misato grabbed her beer and drank. "HAA! Okay, I m done laughing now. Sorry about that."

"No harm done." Ukyou flipped the final dish off of her grill and in front of Misato. "Go ahead, try it."

Misato bolted the okonomiyaki in less than ten seconds. "REALLY good." Ryoga boggled. Not many people could eat like that... well, Ranma could. So could Genma. Come to think of it, he could make a pretty good headway himself. He risked a glance in the other direction, found that Asuka had been paying full attention to her own meal. Rei... well, he probably wouldn t know if she had noticed anything in any case.

"So..." Misato finished off the beer. "You going to be okay?"

Ukyou turned, paused, and resumed cleaning her grill. Then turned again. "Exactly what do you mean?"

"You know, you having to break up with your fianc e." Eep. No. She hadn t. She didn t. Ryoga started to reach back, stopped when he realized that going for his umbrella would make a fight a certainty now.

"And just HOW do YOU know about that?" Ukyou was speaking to Misato, but looking straight at Ryoga. Not just a look. Like being stared at... by Death itself. He could feel his head trying to explode under the force of her gaze.

Misato... either she was too tired to notice, or just plain didn t care, or maybe Ukyou had put straight alcohol in that beer bottle. No other explanations. "When Ryoga came home, he was really broke up about it. Cried all night..." HEY! "Told me about it in the morning. He was worried about it, you know."

"Do you MIND not yelling that kind of thing all over, Misato?" She looked genuinely surprised to see Ryoga lean toward her. He felt his flatware splinter in his grip. "I mean, that s like..."

"What you did to me, telling her?" He could never understand how a woman could say something SO sweetly and still convey a death threat. Had to be a female thing. Just another thing that kept Ukyou from passing as full male.

"Don t worry about it, he was just worried about you, that s all. No stories, no gossip, no nothing. Rather boring, really."

"Was he now?" Instantly, the malice was gone from Ukyou s voice. Just her ordinary life-is-good voice... "How sweet..."

Asuka snickered. "So, stayed up crying over her, did you? You big baby."

Ryoga hung his head over his empty plate. Why did it seem that the world was out to get him?

Gendo ran. It had been years since he d had a good run, and while he d softened up a little, the reflexes were still there. Vague impressions of woods passed by, green leaves, brown trunks, blue sky. Vague, because he wasn t looking at the scenery. He had no idea where he was headed, not that it would have mattered anyway. Just run until you hit something... and keep running...

Or until you get hungry. He considered the meager supplies he had started with. The thought of eating one of those awful freeze-dried meals didn t appeal to him at all... besides, he was still angry. Something to help him work off some aggression. Hunting. Yes. Hunting would help clear his head.

He started to pay more attention to his surroundings, to the flight of lesser creatures along his path. There. A deer noticed his crashing passage through the undergrowth, stiffened, prepared to bolt. It would do quite nicely. He shifted his dash to intercept the doe...

And heard somebody say, "NO! You idiot!" as he passed by. He didn t stop, whoever was there wouldn t catch the deer. It looked up at him, confused, with big brown eyes... Gaaaah. Gendo couldn t STAND cute things. Hands reached out to grasp it by the sides of its head, twisted brutally. Good. He didn t feel like running down a deer, as opposed to eating one.

He whirled, teeth bared, as he heard the stranger approach through the underbrush. Human. Gendo immediately settled out of his combat stance, composing himself. DAMN it all. He didn t particularly feel like dealing with people yet. Although this one looked... odd. Fairly short, with considerably more muscle. Black hair, framing a face that would have been effeminate on somebody with a less impressive build. He wore bracers, silk pants, some kind of Chinese footwear, and a vest. A hellishly impressive vest, Gendo thought. It gleamed as the forest light played over it, first blue, now green. Dragon scales. The bracers shone the same way.

The man held out one hand, from which dangled a primitive sling. "That deer was MY dinner. Go find your own."

"I think not." Gendo sat down next to the deer s carcass, produced a knife from his pack, and methodically began to flay the creature. "I killed it, which makes it MY dinner."

"You are aware that I may have a problem with your logic." With the word "problem", the stranger flexed muscles in his arms. Rather nicely developed, if not bulky. He used to have arms like that...

"Boy..." Good, this was good. An anonymous person, completely outside the Plan... (which was shot to hell, now, what matter whether he was outside the plan?) outside his knowledge anyway, and a perfect opportunity to let off steam. Lots of steam. He pitched his voice into full contempt mode and continued. "I have a long list of problems to consider right now... and you, BOY, are not even on it."

Impressive, how he didn t take the obvious bait. "Then I shall be forced to amend your agenda." A discrepancy... the stranger was using what apparently was a pair of women s pantyhose to secure his waistband. "Right now."

"I don t take lightly to changes in my agenda." Which was why he was out here now... DAMN Seele! They gave him the outline, things that might happen, things that had to happen, things he was to have brought about to fulfill the goal... and they were COMPLETELY wrong. He could have dismissed his son s age. He could have dismissed Eva 01 s victory over the fifth Angel. But when they started coming... OUT OF ORDER... he felt his teeth clench. "Who the hell am I kidding?" The stranger stepped back, once, at the vehemence of Gendo s words. The movement startled Gendo out of his thoughts, and back to the present. "Look, it s obvious that you practice SOME sort of martial arts, and recently. Also, you re in much better physical condition than I am. If we get into some sort of fight, you ll win, and I ll end up hurt somehow, which I really can t afford right now. So quit your posturing and do something useful, like gathering some firewood!"

"Er..." The stranger scratched the back of his head. "Why would I... HEY! What in the world are you doing, telling ME what to do... you old geezer!"

Well, that wasn t exactly too imaginative. "Simple, BOY. There s more deer there than either of us can eat. And neither of us can carry it around..." Well, not after he d skinned it like that... Gendo allowed himself a slight grin. "So we should both eat it. I can t leave the body to go get wood, so unless you like your venison raw, you ll go get some."

The boy thought about that for a second... and arrived at a conclusion. "I believe that I shall, then..." he turned his back and started off. "Hibiki."

"Hey! BOY! No need to run off, there s plenty of wood around right here." Now THAT was a surprise. Gendo hadn t expected his wandering to have become folk legend... nor did he expect the memory of his passing to have survived the Second Impact. "How did you know my name?"

"So, you ARE a Hibiki." The boy grinned. A smug grin. Gendo felt his hackles rise, just looking at that grin. "Simple, geezer. There s only one reason that you couldn t leave the deer, and that s because you wouldn t be able to find your way back to it. That means that you have the Hibiki sense of direction... and that you d better have the meat ready to cook when I finish." He turned, leaped, and disappeared into the underbrush.

Pantyhose Tarou bit into a chunk of deer. It wasn t cooked enough, really, but still quite tasty. He leaned back, sitting against a fallen log that had been a fair-sized tree a few minutes ago, and propped his feet up on a handy stone. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the stranger working another few ribs free of the roasted animal.

Truly, an odd fellow. He was wearing a simple karate gi, and he moved like he had some training, but those horn-rimmed glasses were NOT suitable for a fight. And all of his moves seemed... hesitant. Somebody who hadn t used them for a long, long time. The headbands were silly, they d reminded him of Ryoga... which had prompted that comment. Meant to be a complete in-joke. But he d understood the reference immediately... which meant one of three things.

He couldn t read minds, of course, or he wouldn t still be eyeing Tarou when he thought that he wasn t being observed. He COULD be a genius and have ascertained the value of the joke, immediately telling one of his own. Yeah, right. That meant that he knew Hibiki... and probably WAS a Hibiki. At least he had more of a clue than that moron Ryoga.

Oh, well, time to find out the truth. "Hey, old man!"

The Hibiki settled down beside the fire and proceeded to attack his own dinner. With a full mouth, he barked, "What?"

"What are you doing out here, anyway?"

Hibiki looked up, at the clear night sky. "Forgetting some problems, for a while. You?"

Well, Tarou thought, he HAD asked first... "Solving some, with luck." Happosai was his problem. If he could find the old pervert, THIS time, he could defeat him. Actually, the last few times, he had won those too... but this time, he would FORCE Happosai to remove his curse.

"Huh." Hibiki continued to chew his meal. "Talk about it? Nothing better to do."

"You kidding? I don t even know you."

Hibiki grinned. "You guessed my name, didn t you? Maybe you know me better than you think."

Good point. "I m here to defeat somebody. He s the key to removing a curse I have had all of my life, the only thing preventing me from achieving happiness. If I can force him to revoke the curse, then I can live a normal life again."

"Heh. Such a small problem. Must be nice."

"What? It s not like YOUR problem is the end of the world."

Hibiki turned around, stared directly at Tarou. "Yes, that is exactly my problem."

Well, maybe this Hibiki wasn t more collected than Ryoga after all. "So fix it."

"I m trying." He settled down again. "But it s not that easy. Some people, they ll try to stop me. And then there s the Angels. We can hold them off... probably. Slip up, and it s the end of the game."

"Angels?" Not many people that Tarou could think of had problems with angels. "You re a Satanist, then?"

Hibiki laughed, blowing little bits of deer into the fire. "Heh. No, we re NOT. This has damned little to do with religion. Really, you haven t heard about the Angels?" For a second, Gendo wondered just how far he d traveled in the last few hours. Even with the news blackouts, everybody in Japan must have heard of the Angels by now.

"No, but I ve been out of touch for some time. So, what are they?" Tarou took another bite out of his portion. "Winged seraphs bearing swords of fire, maybe?"

"You really haven t heard. Huge robots. There s been a few attacks on Tokyo-3, so far, but all of them have been repulsed."

Hmpf. "Well, of course they were. A huge robot is easier to hit than a little one."

"BOY, if you re headed to Tokyo-3, you ll see Angels before you leave. THEN you tell me that they re easy to kill. So far, only three people in the world have managed that."

"Jet pilots?"

"No, robot pilots."

It figured. To fight robots, use robots. "Whatever, old man. More likely it s just swamp gas, or something boiling out of Nerima. Things get weird there, you know."

Hibiki leaned back, pulled a cigarette out of his pack and lit up. "Yes, I know."

"Come back soon, now!" Ukyou waved at the retreating group. Ryoga could really pick people to fall in with, she thought. Rei was strange enough. Asuka, though, she was interesting. No WAY she was only fourteen, despite her size. She certainly acted older. Bossed around Ryoga like it was her profession, not that the spineless wimp would mind. For a world-saving robot pilot, Ryoga was... well, he was Ryoga.

And Misato had been, different, she thought. Laughs easily, talks loudly and too much, drinks entirely too much. And there was something familiar about her, like Ukyou should know her already. She dismissed that thought from her mind.

At least she wasn t that mad at Ryoga, now. It felt better, somehow, now that she knew that he was suffering as badly as she was over what he had done. She couldn t even blame him anymore... he was what he was, after all. She shouldn t try to judge him by ordinary standards...

Well, she wasn t THAT angry with him. He still, single-handedly, had ruined her life in a single day. It was infuriating... beating up on him would be utterly ineffective. Making him feel bad would be useless, he already felt bad about it. Persecution wouldn t work, because he was never around for it. She briefly toyed with the idea of divulging a certain secret to Akane as vengeance, then dismissed it as too drastic.

Damn. She couldn t stay angry, no matter how much effort she put into it. She just felt sorry for him. Yeah, that s it, it was pity that she felt, not anger. She turned to help some other customers.

Ryoga waved to Misato and Asuka. He hoped they d be okay, driving home without him or Rei, and considering how much alcohol Misato had consumed. He didn t feel like going home quite yet, although it was late. First, he wanted to stop by the dojo.

Rei had already started, and he had to hurry to catch up. Well, not really hurry, she wasn t THAT fast, but she was moving a lot faster than she had been when they d first met. (Come to think of it, she couldn t move at all when they d first met.) The occasional lesson in Anything Goes Martial Arts must be paying off.

Ranma sat, and reflected on how good life was. He hadn t been fighting Akane lately... she d mellowed out a LOT since he d asked her to marry him. It helped that he tried to watch his mouth, maybe. If he d known how good it would be, he would have asked sooner... he hadn t really been fighting too much of ANYBODY lately. Ukyou was avoiding him, which wasn t great but probably for the best right now. In turn, he was avoiding Shampoo and her great-grandmother. The longer that he could keep the wedding secret from those two, the better it would be. Since he wasn t around Shampoo, Mousse didn t bug him about her. Even Kuno seemed to be a little less quick to use that bokken. And, of course, Ryoga was too busy running around in his Eva to cause any problems.

Ranma looked beside him, at Akane... who was currently leaning against him and thinking thoughts that probably ran along the same lines. He moved his arm around her, sort of a half-hug, and she returned the gesture without looking up. Yes, life WAS good.

Two figures sprang over the outer wall and headed for the porch. Of course. If life was good, something had to come and louse things up. It was pretty dark... but he could still make out the large pack on one of them.

Akane shifted. "Hey, isn t that Ryoga?"

"Yeah. Probably whatshername, Rei, too." He raised his voice. "Hey, Ryoga, isn t it kind of late for you to be running around?"

"Well, yeah, but we were in the neighborhood..." Which meant any one of a dozen things, with Ryoga. Probably got lost. "and thought we d stop by."

Rei moved out of the shadows and sat down at the other end of the porch. A second later, Ryoga dropped his pack a few feet away and used it as a stool.

"Hi, guys." Akane sat up, which was all right but not perfect, he thought. "Good job on the Angel today."

"Killing Angels is a pilot s job." Rei looked at the two of them. Ranma had NO idea what she had meant by that, and it sure didn t show on that face. He wished that HE could get away without blinking like that.

Ryoga scratched the back of his head and laughed. "Uh... thanks."

"That was cool, how you blew it up at the end. I didn t know that the bakusai tenketsu worked on Angels, Ryoga." Ranma chuckled, remembering how he hadn t known that it didn t work on people, once.

"Um... I didn t know either." He laughed to himself as Ranma grew a small sweatdrop. Akane, too. "It just sort of hit me."

Akane spoke first, while Ranma was busy groaning at the awful pun. "You even buzzed... that s what they call it, right? Buzzed the dojo. I d like to see the robot, up close."

Uh oh... normally, anything that Akane said to Ryoga along those lines would cause him to blush furiously and stammer incoherently. Now, though, he was just staring. At Ranma. "I... did what?"

She kept talking. "You know, jumped right over the roof. There s a big footprint over by Ucchan s restaurant. Caused a wreck, this afternoon. We were watching you from the roof..." She trailed off as Ryoga s fists clenched.

Rei stared off into the night. "That WAS a footprint, then..."

"Um, Akane..." Ranma nudged her with his elbow, then whispered, "I don t think that you should have told him that..."

Ryoga stared at the ground in front of him, and stared at his right fist, which now glowed with a greenish aura. "Ranma... I told you to take care of her, make sure that she was all right, didn t I?"

Hm... think fast, defuse the situation. "Yeah, I did, she was, no problem."

Ryoga s face popped up. Twin pits of green fire gazed at Ranma as he shouted, "Then WHY were you SIGHTSEEING on top of the ROOF instead of someplace SAFE?!" He eased forward in his crouch. "Damn you Ranma!" On the last word, he sprang forward.

Ranma felt time slow as Ryoga launched. First, get Akane out of the way... no, no good, there wasn t enough time, he d have to hit her to move her that fast, wouldn t work... he lunged forward himself, trying to redirect his momentum away from the dojo s porch.

The concussion from the impact rang in Ranma s ears as the two hit each other. One chance to get them both away... he grabbed Ryoga, by one shoulder and the waist, and jumped. It wouldn t be pretty, neither of them would land on their feet, but it d clear the wall and get the two away from Akane.

Too late, he realized his mistake... grappling with Ryoga, even if he wasn t frenzied with worry, was suicide. But Ryoga wasn t latching on for a crushing hug, but instead had grabbed Ranma by the shirt and one leg... and he was jumping too... in the same direction.

The two pushed off in midair, landing just outside of the dojo. Ranma whirled on Ryoga, shouted, "What do you think you re doing, you idiot? You could ve hurt somebody!"

Ryoga stood up, pointed at Ranma. "I told you to keep her safe, dammit! How can I keep everybody safe if YOU keep doing STUPID things like that?"

Well, enough was enough. "Sounds to ME like you re just looking for an excuse in case YOU can t hack it! I m getting tired of this, Ryoga! I mean, I put up with a lot from you, I know how you feel about her, and then you turn around and do THIS!"

"It s not my fault that you don t know how to take care of her! I won t stand for it any longer." Ryoga took a step forward, clenching that fist.

"That s IT! Damn it, we end this here and now. No more rematches... Ryoga, you re a threat to Akane. You know it, you admitted it, that s why you gave up. But THAT wasn t enough!" Ranma felt himself seething. "If I win this, I want you OUT of our lives. Never come here again, you got that! NEVER!"

"Fair enough..." Ryoga clenched his jaw. "But then, you have to promise me that if I win, you ll both leave, for good. It s the only way I can protect her, since YOU certainly don t seem too worried about it!"

"Fine with me!" Ranma started circling, looking for an opening. Finally! A way to get Ryoga out of his life, for good. The two leapt toward each other...

Rei looked at Akane. They could both hear something being shouted in the street, but it was too far off to make out the words. She was puzzled... didn t Ryoga like Akane? If so, why did he want Ranma to take better care of her? "Um... why did they do that?"

Akane was gripping the lip of the porch with one hand. "Because," she said, in a voice to match her own, "they re both convinced that I m made of porcelain or something. I m going to have to talk to Ranma when he gets back." Rei thought that "beat to a living pulp" would have been said in a kinder tone than "talk".

"So why don t you stop them?"

Akane turned, suddenly noticing that Rei was sitting beside her. "You know... they re both men. It s kind of useless to talk when they re like this."

Rei nodded... but she DIDN T know. What did being a man have to do with not listening or acting stupid? She asked the same question.

"You mean that you don t know?" Rei shook her head, slightly. "Well... basically, if somebody s not listening or doing something stupid, it s a safe bet that they re a man." Akane frowned. "Those stupid jerks. I swear, if I could go ONE WEEK without having somebody get in a fight with or over me... Hey, you want some dinner?"

"Um..." Rei thought for a second. "Did you cook it?"

"No..." Akane s face hardened. "What should that matter?"

"Ryoga keeps saying that your cooking is bad." Well, he didn t mention Akane by name, but who else could he have meant by "worse than Misato" there?

"He did, did he?" Akane was suddenly weighing a large mallet in her grasp, and in another instant it was gone. Rei was SURE that she hadn t blinked.

Misato opened the door to her apartment, and went inside, followed by Asuka. The latter was still walking unsteadily. "You know, I should be doing that... you didn t drink anything tonight."

Asuka staggered into the kitchen, rummaged around, and then emerged into the living room with a six-pack of beer. "I... I can t believe it. Your driving..."

"WHAT about my driving?"

Asuka sank down on the overstuffed couch. "It was good. Perfect, almost. How many did you have tonight, six? Eight?"

"Seven, good guess." Well, of course alcohol had its effects on her driving, just like everybody else... She did a double take. "What do you mean, good?"

"Just what I said. You stayed in your lane. You used the turn signal. You stopped for EVERY stop sign. You weren t even speeding." Asuka popped the tab on one beer and tossed the remainder to Misato. "It was frightening! We should get you drunk more often."

Misato opened her own beer. "I m not even drunk yet." It was true, she could barely feel the buzz from the liquor she d had with dinner. "Turn on the television, will you?"

"Sure." Asuka fished around between the cushions, eventually producing a remote control. She pointed it toward the TV, thumbed it on, then started methodically flipping channels. Commercial. Commercial. Commercial. Talk show. Commercial. News bulletin. Commercial.

"Go back one, Asuka."

Erg... Asuka had been trying to avoid the news, since she was never in it and she d be damned if anybody else got the pleasure of her watching them. She flipped back...

"...And we now have footage of the vicious battle that is heading through town... Is the chopper... All right, folks, what you re now seeing is the destruction caused by a pair of unknown assailants..."

The screen showed a section of city street. Several holes had been blown into or gouged from the pavement... cars had been overturned like toys in the street... there, that corner lingerie store had been completely demolished by some kind of explosion. The dent in the side of that semi looked suspiciously familiar... she heard the news anchor ask the chopper crew if they could get any closer to the action.

At the range of the shot, she couldn t make anything out... there. Two people, both moving like they were on fire, dodging around each other... one of them attacked, the other moved, and a section of sidewalk disintegrated into rubble. The other twisted and lashed out, missing his target but pulverizing a small car. Both of them jumped, at least four stories high, and away from the camera.

"This is incredible, folks... we repeat, if you are currently along highway 158, move away from the area... you do NOT want to be caught in this. So far, it doesn t look like anybody has been hurt... but the property damage must be in the billions of yen already..."

A greenish beam lanced out from one of the figures, leaving a smoking trail across what had once been a bookstore. The other figure gestured, and fired a yellow beam... it missed, and headed for the camera s POV. The sound of the commentator was drowned out by the thunder of the blast...

"We ve been hit! Some kind of energy beam... it s not bad, but the pilot tells me that we re going to have to land the chopper..."

Misato spit out a mouthful of beer. "That... that was..."

"An Angel!" Asuka turned off the set and headed for the door. "What else could have done that?"

Misato s face went pale, and she grabbed her jacket off of the floor. "I don t want to know..."

Ryoga landed, looked around for a second. No obvious threats besides Ranma. He dimly remembered taking out a SWAT truck, a mile back... and he d seen Ranma hit that helicopter, not straight on but it went down anyway... wait. He was in the blast crater formed by the Angel s attack yesterday. How appropriate.

Ranma stopped, grinned at Ryoga. "You won t win, you know. Besides, either way, win or lose, you re not going to see her again, right? You lose both ways... Well, one way."

Ryoga felt himself snarling. "There s one other way... I can make her safe from us both." He attacked, and Ranma countered... no, DIDN T counter, only evading the attack. Ryoga continued... "You... have... to... die... here!" Why wasn t he attacking back... it was really annoying.

Wait... NO. Too late, Ryoga remembered why Ranma wasn t attacking, noticed the spiral that their dance had sketched in the slag of the crater. Ranma smiled triumphantly, seeing the defeat that must show on Ryoga s face, and punched, straight up, twisting his wrist. "HIRYU SHOTEN HA!"

NO... Ryoga had lost... and he d never see Akane again, not that it would matter because this idiot Ranma would never protect her right, and she d get hurt, even killed... as he felt the first tugging of the impending cyclone, he felt himself calling... "SHISHI HOKODAN!"

Ryoga felt himself being flung aside, impacting into the twisted remains of a steel girder. Stunned, he watched the huge ball of heavy ki plummet from the sky... Ranma hadn t stood a chance of evading it, not in the middle of his own special attack. The crackling ball of energy struck... and exploded, sending Ranma flying across the crater.

He heard another rumbling, this time of tortured metal, as a pipe gave way...

Water main. In the second before Ryoga was drenched, he briefly wondered to himself WHY the world seemed to always be against him...

Misato arrived on the scene twenty minutes after the last attack. She had seen it over the horizon, but a quick call to NERV had Hyuuga assuring her that the Magi detected neither a blue pattern nor an AT field. She immediately turned and went to see what had happened.

Asuka lurched out of the car. Whatever comment she had about Misato s driving was lost on her ears, as she immediately ran toward the perimeter of the blast crater.

A policeman stopped her at the barricade. "Sorry, ma am, but nobody s allowed past here." She looked around. Twenty police vehicles had been disabled, blown glass windshields, flattened tires, even a couple overturned.

She reached into her jacket, produced her NERV identification card. "I m allowed through. What the hell happened here?"

The officer s eyes widened at the sight of her badge, and again at the sight of her. He coughed, turning to the wreckage. "Some kind of explosion, ma am. That green thing from the sky hit some kind of wind, and it just went straight to hell... Nobody s dead, but there s quite a few of us that were cut up a bit. Good thing it happened here."

"Yeah..." Misato trudged up toward the lip of the crater, intending to see the damage. "Did you see who did it?"

"Um... no, ma am, although Akira says that he saw a little girl running away afterwards... redhead, red shirt, although it s my opinion that he s been reading too many comics, ma am. Nobody could have lived through that. He even says that she had a little pig with her."

"Did you say a redhead?" Misato surveyed the damage. It was like the Angel s explosion, all over again. Well, no real harm done here, since you couldn t destroy the same thing twice... at the bottom, she could see the shine of the first layer of armor over the Geofront. That must have been one HELL of a blast to dig that deep.

"Yes, ma am." The officer looked uneasy. "Um... was this..." he waved his hand at the crater, then at the mangled police vehicles. "did it have anything to do with what happened this morning?"

"No... no, I hope not." She wasn t seeing anything important here, that was for sure. That redhead, again. Something was important about her. "Thank you, officer." Misato started walking back to her car.

Rei saw Ranma, as a girl, walk up to the door of the dojo. She was carrying Ryoga... unless there were more pig-cursed people around. That was something to think about... no, it was Ryoga, the pig had on his headbands. She pushed the door open.

Ranma staggered across, like not all of her bones were working right. She looked up, seemed to register Rei s presence. "Uh... Kasumi... I m gonna go take a bath. Can you bring Ryoga s pack up for me?" Rei nodded, too surprised over his words to object. Ranma then continued to drag himself inside, heading for the second floor of the house.

Well... might as well do it. Rei walked outside and grabbed onto one strap of the pack... no, she was too tired to lift it that far. She freed the umbrella from the pack and hefted the latter. He could come get his OWN umbrella, she thought, as she headed toward the dojo. Gendo hadn t told her to stay awake waiting for him.

Ranma held his head in one hand as he leaned on the side of the tub. He hurt EVERYWHERE. That had quite possibly been the MOST stupid thing he had ever done. At least he was still alive, though. Had to count for something... he winced at the pain in his ribs. It didn t count for too much. He looked over at Ryoga, asked, "So? Who won?"

Ryoga, as a pig, leapt into the bath and changed. His human head, now wrapped with bandanas, broke the surface of the water. "Owww..." He fell back against the side. "I didn t." He looked at Ranma, made an attempt at grinning. "Did you?"

"Hell yeah. Get out of my house, pig."

"Right. Make me." They both started laughing, weakly, and punctuated by more than a few wheezes. "Promise me that we ll never do that again, okay?"

"Fine by me. Besides, when did I ever attack YOU?"

"Jusenkyo, remember?"

Well, Ryoga did have a point. "You still sore about that? I mean, at least as a cute pig you don t have to fend off Kuno."

Ryoga chuckled, then winced. "At least in the Eva, it stops hurting when you turn it off."

"Hurts to pilot Eva?"

"Hell yes. Worse than this, when the Eva gets hurt... but somebody has to do it, and I guess I m it."

Ranma swallowed, said, "Look, man, I m sorry I didn t keep Akane away from that. She could have been hurt."

"Don t worry about it..." Huh? "If... you can fight like that... I m not sure that you have anything to worry about."

"Heh. Truce?"

"Truce. Oh..." Ryoga snapped his fingers. "Been meaning to tell you... you re supposed to get a ring for Akane. Engagement ring."

Ranma smacked his head with his palm, setting off an entirely new level of pain. Of course! He had completely forgotten about that. "Uh... I don t know anything about rings..."

"Neither do I. Just go get her something... she ll appreciate it... you lout."

"Hey, I thought that we had a truce."

Ryoga grinned through bruised lips. "I reserve the right to insult you."

"Whatever, P-chan." They both started laughing again, only to stop as they both winced in pain.

The door to the bath opened, revealing Rei, carrying Ryoga s pack. As the two dove under the bath water, she dropped the pack and asked, "Is this all right?"

Ranma risked a peek. Well, at least she wasn t trying to join him like Shampoo would. "Um... do you mind?" She wasn t smiling... well, maybe. A little.

"Mind what?"

Ryoga s head surfaced. "MIND GETTING OUT OF THE BATHROOM?"

"Oh... OK." She turned around and closed the door.

"Huh." Ranma turned to look at Ryoga. He was really turning red. "How do you put up with her?"

"I don t know, man. At least I don t get lost anymore..."

"Well... look, I ll walk you home with her, then. I don t think she could carry you without splashing you."

"Better tell Akane... she might get jealous."

Oh, man, he hadn t even thought about that. "That s sick."

"Yeah."

Akane waited by the porch. A few minutes ago, Ranma had left with Ryoga and Rei, to "make sure they got home all right." Honestly. As if anything would make trouble with Ryoga. Besides, Ranma couldn t fool her, he had really gotten hurt earlier. So had Ryoga, she thought. Stupid jerks. As if she couldn t take care of herself.

She pricked her ears up as she heard somebody moving into the garden. Must be Ranma... no. Way too noisy, and not his kind of noisy. The figure stopped, set down a pack, sat on the pack. The gesture was so utterly familiar... but this man was taller, thinner, OLDER than Ryoga. He held his head in his hands... and cried out to the sky.

"WHERE THE HELL AM I NOW?"

She stood up, flipped on the switch for the porch light. In the glare, she couldn t make anything out too clearly... whoever it was wore a gi, sandals, a belt. He looked at her, his glasses glinting in the light, as she asked, "What are you doing here?" Unexpected visitors were NEVER good news, she thought.

"Um..." He made as if to scratch the back of his head, slapped at a fly on his shoulder instead. "I... just wandered by. Saw the light on. May I come in?"

"S-sure." Akane stepped back as the stranger stepped inside. She saw his short hair, beard, tinted glasses... saw his headbands. The conclusion was obvious. "H-hibiki...san?"

He stared at her, shocked. "Why does everybody know who I am?" he asked the air behind her shoulder. He then proceeded to sit down at the table. "Yes, my name is Hibiki. How did you know that, girl?"

"Um..." She sat down herself. "The headbands. They re just like Ryoga s headbands."

"Ah... I see. You know my son." SON? Ryoga hadn t ever mentioned a father before, to her... Ranma had said something, about him having run off or something... "Where are we?"

Well, if it was really Ryoga s father, at least he was consistent with what she knew of the family. "Nerima. In Tokyo-3?" His eyes tightened at the first statement. "Japan?"

"I know full well where Nerima is, child..." He stood up, started walking for the door. "Thank you. I can find my way from here. You are...?"

"Akane Tendo," she responded, without thinking.

"Thank you, Tendo-chan. I will leave now." He faded into the darkness outside the door... she heard him pick up his pack, but didn t hear him climbing the wall.

Now THAT was weird. She d have to tell Ranma... once he got back. Stupid... making her wait up for him.

End of part 11

Questions, comments, flames go to akent


	12. Chapter 12

Misato tapped her fingers on the side of the couch. It was late. VERY late. AND on a school night to boot. Ryoga really should have made it home earlier. MUCH earlier. Especially considering that he was out with Rei. If she didn t know better, she d say that they were out on some sort of date. Hell, she might NOT know better.

Clock... the clock read 11:45 PM. Fifteen minutes. If they weren t back by midnight, she d call Futuyuski. HE would hit the ceiling, but at least he could track down Rei. Presumably, she was with Ryoga. Also presumably, she had the phone in her vest pocket. Misato shuddered at the fleeting thought that Rei might not have her vest pocket handy... No, that didn t bear thinking about.

She looked at the kitchen, saw Penpen waddle away from the refrigerator. He had a beer... two beers. Once again Misato marveled at how perfect a pet the warm-water penguin made. It hopped onto the couch, made a sound that was something like "Wark!", and dropped one of the beers on her leg. She grabbed it (COLD) and started drinking immediately.

A scraping sound outside the door brought her around. That HAD to be them... Misato jumped up, mashed the opening control for the door three times before it responded. Outside... nobody. She risked a peek outside, and saw Rei... and Ryoga... and he had his arm around her... and he wasn t walking straight.

Immediately, she felt blood rushing to her face. DAMN! She knew it had been a bad idea to let him drink around the house. Now here he was, coming home plastered, making poor Rei drag him all the way home (and of course she had just taken it, didn t even call a cab, poor dear), and now he was probably going to lose his dinner all over her apartment s floor too.

Rei pulled him the rest of the way to the apartment. He still had his pack on, although he had the umbrella in the hand opposite Rei. He was using the umbrella as a crutch... she saw Rei look at him, with an expression that could have been worry.

Misato reached out, grabbed Ryoga by his lapel-analogues, and hauled him inside the apartment. He didn t quite get his arm disentangled from Rei, she was tugged inside too, but Misato wasn t looking at her. She slammed Ryoga down on the couch and took a step back, hoping he wouldn t lose it then and there, prepared to go into full lecture mode...

His face. It looked like he d been run through a meat grinder, slowly. Everything was red, both eyes black (and one shut!), his nose wasn t quite straight, the lips were puffy. She recoiled in horror, then examined him more closely. The open eye was partially filmed... he wasn t noticing much. Misato sniffed, but could detect NO alcohol on his breath.

Rei came the rest of the way inside and sat down in the chair. "He had a rough night." Misato glanced over, thought she saw a ghost of a smile on Rei s face... nah, not likely. That worried expression, not really any different from her ordinary mask...

"What happened to him?" She thought that slapping him might bring him around, but reconsidered after thinking about what kind of damage that she might do by mistake. Ah. There was another easy way to bring somebody out of a stupor... Misato headed for the kitchen, picked a mostly clean glass, and filled it with cold water. THIS should wake him up.

When she returned, he was sitting up, slightly, but still dead to the world. "Okay, Ryoga, wakey wakey..." His eye rolled, pointed toward the glass. Focused on the glass. As she pitched the cup forward, he exploded into motion, sliding out of the pack s straps and onto the floor. The water coursed onto his pack... she looked down, saw him blinking furiously and shaking his head. And breathing REALLY heavily. "Back with us?"

Rei chuckled. (Chuckled?) "Go get some more water... that ll wake him up."

"Not... funny, Rei." He pulled himself back onto the couch, tumbling his pack to the floor. "Oog. Not... fun. I m... okay, really." He nodded his head vigorously. "Okay... I m back."

Misato s eyebrow twitched. "I don t suppose that you re coherent enough to EXPLAIN what you were doing out so late?"

Ryoga looked her directly in the face, said, "Got hit... by a car?"

"Not likely, unless you were stupid enough to lie there and get hit by a lot of them." That was a pretty feeble lie. "Go on, what happened?"

She glanced at Rei, using one of her patented Commander-of-doom looks, and Rei said, "He got in a fight."

"With WHAT? An armored division?" Wait a second... Misato s mind flashed back to green and yellow energy on the television screen. "NO."

"Uh... I could use some aspirin... everything got stiff on the way home..."

"Ryoga, was that YOU fighting in downtown today?"

She would swear that that was a guilty look, if his face wasn t so mangled. "Um... sorry?"

Paradise Lost, part 12 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters belong to Gainax or Rumiko Takahashi -  
Ryoga s head throbbed. Man, but night air wasn t good for aching muscles. He really should have thought about that before taking a hot bath... at least Ranma had been as bad off as he was. They had basically carried each other here, and Rei had helped him up the last flight of steps...

Hm... Ranma was going to have to get home, somehow. With any luck, he d be all right. Anybody who could take that kind of abuse deserved a break. Not that he d get one, when he got home. Akane, goddess though she was, was never the forgiving sort.

Judging from the expression on Misato s face, HE wasn t about to get a break either. "Exactly why did you decide to blow up all those police cars?"

"It was an accident." Really, it had been. Whenever he fought Ranma, usually the only thing to suffer was the local surroundings. "They shouldn t have pulled in the way like that."

"AND the news helicopter?"

Um... "That was him." Ranma had almost taken his head off with that shot. Kind of dirty, aiming upward like that.

"AND the lingerie store?"

"Um... that was me. Sorry." Somehow, he had to figure out how Ranma avoided being hit like that. Ryoga couldn t remember landing more than one out of every twenty or so, maybe not even that...

"AND all those cars?"

Ryoga grew a sweatdrop. "Both of us, I think... it s a little blurred."

"AND the blast crater?"

"Hey! I did that this morning, not during the fight."

Her eyebrow twitched, spasming. "SO, you want to share with us how you managed to punch a hole in the Geofront s armor?"

"I did? Wow..." She didn t look too impressed with that. "Must have been that last one... I hit him with the Perfect Shishi Hokodan at the same time he hit me with the Hiryu Shoten Ha. Damn, but we d never done THAT before. Pretty stupid, huh?"

"Yeah, I d say pretty stupid just about covers it." Misato slammed her empty beer can on the arm of the couch. "Who do you think is going to PAY for all of that?" Ryoga dithered for a second. "And why do you keep saying "him" anyway? The only person that was seen running away was some redhead. Where does she fit into all of this, anyway?"

An idea percolated through the bruised mass of Ryoga s skull. Hm... opportunity. He d feel bad about pinning everything on Ranma, except for the fact that it was all his fault anyway. It d even be fun to watch, probably. "Um... that s just Ranma... don t worry about her."

"Ranma?" Misato s face did something strange... he couldn t identify her expression. "What are you talking about?"

"Ranma... well, she s Ranma, you know? Ah, hell with it. Just send the bill to Nabiki Tendo. She ll cover it."

"Huh?" Ryoga fervently hoped that Misato would not choose this moment to look over at Rei, who was about to fall out of her chair from suppressing giggles.

"Yeah... she knows more about Ranma than me anyway..."

"Um... sure, whatever. Don t think that you re off the hook, though!"

Ryoga stood up... ah, both legs were working correctly now. "It ll wait for morning... I ve got to go heal up first." He tottered off towards his room, finding it on the second try, and collapsed on the bed. Ah. Nice, soft bed. There WERE advantages to living here.

Misato was up early... it frightened her that she could be so active on only four hours of sleep... but she couldn t sleep. Something kept bugging her, eating at the back of her mind... Something about Ryoga s story. It wasn t matching up.

She decided that the LEAST he owed her was a full explanation. She walked over to his room... knocked a couple times. After all, it wouldn t be POLITE to just barge in. She then proceeded to barge in.

He was lying, face up, on the bed. And healthy-looking. The bruises and marks from yesterday had faded... completely. He was his normal self, if a little rumpled. Really, you shouldn t sleep in your clothes. Now to wake him up... She tossed a shoe at his head. No response. No, wait... he was stirring. "Hey, Ryoga, wake up, you idiot."

"huh?" He blinked twice and levered himself up. "What are you doing, Misato?"

"Something about yesterday. I thought you didn t fight girls!"

"I don t... g way, lemme sleep." He rolled over.

"Then what was that Ranma girl doing in the crater in the FIRST place!"

"Uh?" He sat up straight. "Hey, would you cut it out? I said I m sorry already!" He flung himself back on his bed and threw the covers over his body.

A banging came from the wall next door, followed by Asuka s voice... "Hold it down already! It s six AM!"

Well, she knew how to take a hint. "Okay, alright already." She shut the door behind him.

Asuka shuffled in from next door. "Wha..." Bleary... "Couldn t you wait a few minutes? I was having a nice dream, you know..." Having said her piece, she headed back for her bed.

Hm... Misato wandered into the kitchen, grabbed a beer. Sitting at the kitchen table, she leaned her chair back and considered Ryoga s reaction. Obviously he had been fighting a girl. It must have been the same girl as before... "Ranma", by all odds... and he was embarrassed about having fought her.

And she was GOOD. Misato knew that Ryoga could damage things with his... ki, he d called it. The carcass of the Fifth Angel attested to that. And she was doing the same thing, or something pretty similar. Did the color matter? Misato shook her head and followed that thought with a gulp of beer. She didn t know enough about it to answer that question...

Another question came to mind. If Ryoga s ki attacks could hurt an Angel, even through its AT field... hers probably could too. And if she could hurt an Angel... she could hurt an Eva just as easily. No, more easily.

This "Ranma"... she again shook her head at the name and wondered if the world was intentionally twisted, or if it just seemed like that... she could be a threat to NERV, one that humanity couldn t afford. She resolved to ask Kaji about it. The egotistical bastard would definitely know what to do about this situation.

Ryoga waited until he heard the sound of Misato leaving for HQ, then dragged himself out of bed. No point in hiding from her, but he d best let her cool off a little first. He stretched, still tight from the previous night s exertions, and changed his clothing. He was fine, sure, but not nearly one hundred percent, not after a night spent healing like that. No school today, he resolved.

The smell of... well, he couldn t identify it, but it smelled like food... wafted in the hallway outside his room. He stopped to collect his pack from the doorway before setting off in search of his breakfast. No point in taking chances. After a minute of blundering into linen closets and such, he finally managed to reach the next apartment, where he saw a sleepy Asuka munching on something that looked very much like a big cracker. She looked up and mumbled a greeting around a mouthful of... whatever it was.

"And good morning to you, too." He slung his pack on the floor and sat down. "Your turn to cook?"

"mpgf Yeah. Eat up, or we ll be late."

He grinned. "You ll be late, you mean. I ve got a day off coming."

She flipped him one of the rectangular objects and chuckled. "Doesn t have anything to do with the fact that you beat up a girl yesterday, does it?"

"HEY!" Ryoga bit into the thing a great deal harder than he had intended. Sugary, hot, not really tasty, but it d do. "As if YOU don t know what happened already."

"Of course I know." Asuka s face shone with the certain knowledge of her own superior intellect. "In fact..."

She was cut off by Rei s entrance. "I told her what happened last night."

The look on Asuka s face... PRICELESS. Ryoga wished, not for the first time, that he had a camera handy. She deflated like a burst balloon. "Well, so, I figured it out anyway... So, what are you going to do about it?"

"Ignore it and hope it goes away." He polished off the rest of the wafer in two bites. "The LAST thing I want Misato looking into is my personal life."

"She ll look anyway... she strikes me as the nosy type." Asuka wiped a crumb off of the table and looked up at him. "YOU are going to get it, you know?"

"From what?" Rei didn t move to eat one of the things, though she did sit down.

"From NERV! The pilots that keep humanity safe from the Angels shouldn t be out brawling in the streets."

Ryoga stared at her, hoping to detect some sign of sarcasm... no, nothing. The utter ludicrousness of the thought hit him, and he laughed, almost choking. "Asuka... wheeze I ve been... cough brawling for quite a time now, a HELL of a lot longer than I ve been a pilot. It s kind of a habit."

Rei reached across the table and poked Ryoga s forehead. Twice. "How did..." She blinked, once. "You were bruised here last night. And there..." poking at his ribs, "And there..." at his shoulder. "Doesn t that hurt?"

"Um... no. I heal fast too."

Asuka smirked. "Yes, it s the amazing Ryoga, everybody. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking!"

"It s not like that!" He stretched a bit. Still some kinks to work out... "I just know how to heal up quickly. Something I learned way back when. It s not that important anyway."

"Can you show me how to do that?" Rei was looking at him... Ryoga thought that she had a different look, it was almost like she wasn t looking at all, but you knew that she was.

"Hey, hey, break it up, you two." Asuka interposed her bag between the two. "Well, I m headed to class. YOU can do whatever losers do on their day off."

"Good." The insult didn t hit Ryoga right away, and it wasn t worth the effort to get angry with her over it. "I ve got some shopping to do."

"Shopping?" Asuka stopped and stared at him like he had just been splashed with cold water. "What the hell would you go shopping for?"

"Um... I told Ranma that I d help him look for an engagement ring today."

She regarded him with a skeptical look. "And you two know something about jewelry, then?"

"Um, no. What s to know?"

"Obviously you ll just hurt yourself if I leave you alone. Well, I ll just have to go with you and keep you from screwing up. Ready, Wonder Girl? Or would you like breakfast first?"

Rei looked at the plate of wafers... her expression didn t change, but one eyebrow twitched up. "What are they?"

"Toaster tarts. I don t like cooking in the morning."

"I d rather not." Ryoga racked his brain, trying to recall if Rei had ever referred to her preferences before. Didn t find any specifics.

"Why not? They must be safe, Ryoga ate one." Asuka grabbed one and shoved it at Rei.

"That s what Misato said." Well, he was just trying to be helpful... Asuka didn t have to react like that. Her wrists and elbows bent to ninety degrees in skew directions, and she leapt back like she d been burnt. "Well, she did... and Akane too."

This time, Rei took a step back. "I would really rather not, then."

"So, which way are we headed?" Asuka followed behind Rei, as they walked towards some unknown destination... well, almost unknown. It had to be in Nerima, what with the wholesale property damage.

"First, we pick up Ranma." Ryoga kept trying to head off to one side or another, and Rei kept having to chivvy him back into line. "Then, I dunno, we find a jewelry store."

Misato closed the door behind her. She still didn t particularly want to see Kaji, in fact she could never see him again and be just as happy... but after yesterday, she couldn t ignore the pig-tailed girl any longer. If she was as capable as Ryoga, and she had to have been to beat him up like that, then she couldn t be allowed to run around loose or attack pilots.

As soon as she reached her chair, she heard a rap at the door. "Come in."

The door opened, and Kaji sauntered in. She hated his stubble. Hated his dressing. Hated his leather jacket. Especially hated the way he seemed to light up whenever she was around. He slid into her visitor s chair, propped an elbow on the table and rested his head in his hand. "Misato... you look GREAT in the morning. What happened?"

She hated that, too. "Cut the crap, Kaji. I m not in the mood today."

"Ah, but what else can I do? You call me in here, don t tell me what you want, I have to assume SOMETHING. My heart soars." He sighed and looked at the ceiling. "If it s not THAT..."

The nerve! "THAT is something you re not here to get."

His face in perfect poker set, he continued. "...then you must want me to do something else. What favor can I do for you?"

"Well..." She grabbed a video tape from the desk. Maya was wonderful, they really didn t deserve her; as soon as the news had cut to the fight yesterday, she had slammed on the "record" button. "Did you see what happened yesterday?"

"Not up close, but I saw a little of it from my car. It was great! I haven t seen a display of ki attacks like that since before the Second Impact."

Misato glanced back at the tape, then did a double take. "What do you mean, you ve seen that kind of thing before?"

"It was WAY back, maybe twenty years ago... I was still doing my wandering thing, you know, just floating for a while. One summer, I guess it was 99, I was doing some cooking work at this little place..." Misato let her head droop, then bent it ninety degrees. "Okay, I get the point. Anyway, there was this little guy, older than dirt, he did an eat and run. The boss sent me after him, since I was the only martial artist handy..."

He swallowed. "I caught up with him a few miles outside of town. He d stopped, there was some kind of small army attacking him. He beat a few of them down, they were all dressed in black, but pretty weak. Then, they did something, I couldn t see it, but he just jumped into the middle of a pack of them. They started beating on him, and I went over that way, thought I could get some licks of my own in... He exploded. Literally, there was this great big BANG, and then I was flying. I think I hit my head on a rock or something."

"Now isn t THAT a pity."

"Hey, now, be nice... When I woke up, there were two of these guys with the old man. One of them was short, bald, and pudgy... come to think of it, he sounds a lot like your ex-husband."

She snorted. "You forgot greedy and lazy."

"Well, I was just making a joke... the other one was a nice fellow, though. Came over, gave me something to kill the pain, bottle of sake I think, and we talked for a while. What was his... Soun Tendo. That s right... he told me about what was going on. Said that it was some special attack of... well, he just called the old coot "the Master". I don t remember a whole lot of it. Man, I hope he surv..." Kaji trailed off and looked at her. "Sorry."

"Look, you can mention the Second Impact without me killing you. I just don t like to talk about it, that s all." She tossed him the tape. "I d like you to watch that. See if you can figure out what s going on."

"I can do that." He tucked the tape into his jacket. "I don t want to run into whoever was doing that, though."

"You already have. One of them was Ryoga-kun." She saw his face change, all humor gone now. "Yeah, he admitted it. The other one was a girl, red hair, ponytail, wearing black pants and a red shirt."

"That sounds familiar... could it be the same one that stepped on Ritsuko a while back?"

"I m sure of it."

He whistled, low. "She d asked me to find out who that was, but it s no good. There must be thousands of redheads in Tokyo-3. It s unnatural, I tell you..."

"Ryoga said that her name is Ranma. I don t know if it s true, he s obviously lying about some other things related to the fight, but it s a start."

She could tell that Kaji was tense, even though his face wasn t showing the reaction. "With a name, I can do something." He stood.

"And could you find out something about those... ki attacks? If we can use them against the Angels... well, we have already, haven t we?"

"Now, now... I m not a master myself, I just swing a wooden stick around to stay in shape, Misato. Hm... I can find Soun, though. He s supposed to have had a dojo around here... give me two days at the database."

"They re yours. Thanks, Kaji."

A rakish grin spread across his face. "You knew that I would agree... ah, the things that I do, to stay with such beauty."

"Do you EVER change?"

For a moment, something dark flashed across his expression... "Yes, of course..." As he left, she heard his whisper. "I just hope that it s enough."

Ryoga jumped over the wall, shortly followed by Rei. Asuka, wondering exactly how you could jump ten feet in the air and not hurt yourself on landing, decided to play it safe and used the gate. She managed to catch up with them just before they made it to the porch... where Ranma was talking with some girl with brown hair and a sweater.

"C mon, you KNOW I can t afford twenty percent interest."

The unfamiliar girl spoke. "Of course not. But, then again, you can t afford the principal either, or you wouldn t have come to me, now would you?"

Ranma shuffled his feet. "Damn, Nabiki..."

Ryoga sat next to the other two. "Come on, Ranma, let s go. Um... where s Akane?"

"She went out for a run. Man, it s great, with the school blasted, we ve got some time off. How s life, P-chan?"

Nabiki blinked once at the remark, but Ryoga just smiled. "I feel great. Hurry up, we need to go before Akane gets back..."

"And just WHY do you need to go somewhere?" Nabiki pointed a finger straight up. "Ryoga, you know it s not a good idea to tell me things like that... now I ll have to get Ranma to do something for me."

Ranma bopped Ryoga on the head, once, and Asuka thought that it hadn t been a serious hit. "Hey, stupid, I m already in bad financial shape, I can t afford to tick her off like that."

"Quit whining, Ranma. I ve already taken care of that. Let s go."

Rei looked at Asuka. "What are they talking about?"

Hm... she d feel really stupid saying "I don t know" to Wonder Girl. Asuka smiled, only partly in humor, and said, "Blackmail, obviously."

"What s that?"

"Um..." How to put it in terms that Rei would understand... "When somebody has a secret, but you know the secret, sometimes you can make them give you money so that you won t tell the secret."

"Oh. Then why aren t we blackmailing Ryoga? He s got a secret."

Ranma chuckled. "Not much of a secret. I still don t know WHY Akane hasn t figured it out."

"Figured what out?" Nabiki glanced back and forth between the four. "Come on, tell me... what?"

Ryoga shot a glare at Nabiki that should have powdered the wall behind her. "It s NOTHING, OKAY?!"

"Right, right..."

"Anyway, let s go."

Once again, Asuka was left to take the gate as the others vaulted the wall. As she approached the group, now headed in what was presumably the direction of a jewelry store, she asked, "How do you all do that?"

"Do what?" Ranma looked back at her.

She did a bouncing motion with her left hand. "You know, jump like that."

"Oh. Um... I ALWAYS jump like that. Ryoga?"

"Well, I have to jump harder, that s all."

Rei chuckled, which was strange in and of itself. "Ryoga just jumps. Ranma, he tucks his legs a little, then snaps them back and upward. It gives him four times the boost of a normal jump."

"How did you... never mind." Asuka paused, bent her own legs, and tried the motion. After sailing an incredible three feet, she landed back on the sidewalk. "Well, that was still a pretty good jump."

Ranma snorted, while Ryoga just wandered over to a crossing street. Rei snagged him by the back of his headband and pointed him in the correct direction, stifling a giggle.

Ranma hadn t been to a mall in ages. In fact, he d never been much for malls, especially considering that he d spent most of his life wandering through the wilderness with his father, and even in Nerima he couldn t afford much more than food expenses.

This was a particularly nice mall, by his standards. Two floors, both of them lined with stores. Shoe stores. Leather stores. Clothing stores. Book stores. He paused before a sporting equipment store before Ryoga popped him on the head to get moving.

For some reason, Ranma felt that he was in an incredibly good mood. Here he was, getting married (married!) to Akane, walking along with Ryoga without being attacked, with an enforced school vacation to boot. It didn t get much better than this, he thought.

They found a jewelry store, and the four walked inside. Under one of the glass cases, he saw a really nice selection of rings. Lots of rings. All sorts of rings... man, were there a lot of rings. Ranma whistled, slowly, and started hunting through them.

He glanced up once, briefly, seeing a salesman coming his way. Ryoga grunted, and flared his battle aura. (Dim green. Ryoga must be in a good mood too... or at least not quite as depressed as normal.) The salesman, fearing for his life, retreated to a corner and tried to avoid eye contact.

Asuka bent over the case, pointed at one ring. "That one s nice." It WAS nice. Beyond nice. Perfect. It was a simple golden band, set with a small stone. He didn t know what KIND of stone it was, but it shone with a deep, dark blue. The exact shade of Akane s hair... Yes, it would do nicely.

Ranma signaled to a different sales clerk. "I d like that one... no, the one next to that one, right... yeah, that s it."

The clerk looked awfully familiar. High school age, brown hair, longish... He couldn t place her. "This one IS nice, isn t it? And it s priced on sale, only eighty thousand yen."

Ranma picked his jaw up off the glass counter. "Eighty... th... thousand!?" That was WAY more money than he had. Way more than he d EVER had. More than... he emitted a strangling sound as Ryoga reached into his headband.

"Yes, that s correct. We have a variety of payment plans..." Ryoga proceeded to pull several five-thousand yen bills from his headband, stopping when he had produced sixteen of them. "But, of course, cash up front is never refused."

Asuka kicked Ryoga s ankle. "Hey, don t forget the tax, stupid."

"Oh, yeah, right." Ryoga placed another two bills on the stack.

Wow. That... what the... where the hell did Ryoga get that kind of cash? You d think that Clueless Man Robs Bank would make the news. "Ryoga... um... what s that?"

Ryoga turned, thwapped Ranma s head with one finger. "Ranma, you don t have much money, right?"

"Um, no... but..."

"And it s my fault that you re getting married right now, right?"

"Yeah, kinda... but..."

"So I m helping out a bit." Ryoga scratched the back of his head. "Besides, it s for Akane anyway."

"Um..." Now THAT was generosity. "Th... thanks, Ryoga."

"Don t mention it." Ryoga, seeing that Ranma s shock hadn t worn off, finished purchasing the ring and gathered his change, tucking the remainder into his headband. He held the ring up to his eye. "Nice. And it s her size, too."

"How do you know her ring size?"

Ryoga replaced the ring in its case and handed it back to him. "You learn a lot about somebody when you sleep with them for a year... what?"

Ranma fell over onto the case, as did the sales lady. Asuka flashed bright scarlet, and even Rei seemed shocked. Well, she blinked, anyway.

"Um... OH NOT LIKE THAT! You pervert." Ryoga hauled Ranma off the counter and out of the store, promptly turning into a service corridor before the other two could catch up.

Yuka smiled. THAT had been a shock, having both Ranma and Ryoga wander in... although she didn t recall ever seeing the other two before.

"Is it safe to come out?" Hikaru popped his head over the counter, glancing around.

"Yes, he s gone, get up already." She had to admit, Hikaru looked pretty good in a suit. With school on leave, while they fixed some of the damage, it made sense to get a job, and this one was pretty good. A nice commission on that sale.

She smiled to herself, again. Ranma probably hadn t even recognized her outside of a school uniform. And Ryoga didn t know her at all, although he himself was famous... well, infamous around the Furinkan campus. There was only ONE reason why Ranma would be buying a ring, though. He was about to propose to somebody. And the color made it pretty clear who... Yuka privately cheered. It was about time that Akane got a ring out of her betrothal.

Now she just had to figure out what Ryoga had meant... it couldn t be what she had thought... could it? She blushed a bit, thinking of Ryoga s last statement.

Anyway, everybody would HAVE to hear about it. It just wasn t fair, keeping a secret like that.

Ryoga tapped his foot as he waited for Asuka. True, she had helped out, finding the right ring and everything. Although he didn t recall himself dragging her along, exactly. But she didn t have to try on every dress in the store or anything. He leaned back on the bench, looked over at Ranma. "So, are you happy?"

"Yeah, VERY happy. That s one hell of a favor, Ryoga. I ll pay you back in no time, man."

Ryoga shuddered. "I m not like... your sister-in-law, you know. It s a gift for Akane. Besides, what do I need the money for anyway?"

Ranma grinned. "Hey, thanks... come to think of it, where did you GET that kind of money? Weddings are expensive."

Ryoga grunted his agreement. "You wouldn t believe how good that piloting thing pays. It s incredible. I ve got more money than I know what to do with. I mean, that in there was my bonus for killing ONE ANGEL. Just ONE!"

"Man, I ve gotta get in on that. Sign me up!"

"Fat chance, Ranma. Besides, you re better off... it s NOT fun moving one of those around. And they make you do all sorts of tests all the time."

Rei nodded from his other side. "Yes, and you ve never seen Misato angry. She s not pleasant to deal with, sometimes. And Ritsuko..." She trailed off.

"Hey, you think she s going to take all day, Ranma?" Ryoga adjusted the straps on his pack.

"Women, huh?"

Rei asked, "What do you mean?"

Ryoga looked over at her. She had on her "curious" face, which looked a lot like her normal face. Then again, she ALWAYS looked like her normal face. "What does being a woman have to do with it?"

"Well, women like to shop a lot, right Ryoga?"

Well, inasmuch as Ryoga knew less than a dozen women well... "Yeah, I think so."

"But I m a woman."

Ranma squinted, said, "Yeah, think so."

"Take my word for it, Ranma." Ryoga blushed a little. Man, those plug suits were TIGHT.

"But I m not shopping."

"Well, you re not normal, then, I guess." Ranma chuckled. "Not that I m one to talk... I don t ever like shopping, even when I m..."

Rei nodded. "So it s not something physical?" That wasn t quite her "curious" face... a little bit of a frown... maybe her "worried" face.

"Cultural, maybe." Ryoga saw Asuka at the counter in the store, buying a couple of items he couldn t see too clearly. "Don t worry about it."

Ranma chuckled. "I dunno. So far, you ve been wearing your uniform every time I ve seen you, even at night. Don t you have some other clothes?"

"No, I don t."

"Why not?"

She sat back, staring at the railing of the balcony on the second floor. Ryoga saw her mouth the words, "why not", to herself.

Ryoga felt Ranma smack his shoulder. "Hey, Ryoga..." He had a look on his face, not quite worried, but still... "Who s this Misato person you keep referring to?"

"Well, she s..."

Three stores down, a glass fa ade exploded outwards, showering the lower level with stray shards and various ladies undergarments. A small mote emerged from the cloud of pulverized fixture dust, resolving into the image of Happosai. He had a cloth tied over his head, his usual brown ninja suit, and a large cloth sack tucked over one shoulder. He stopped, cackled madly for a moment, and then headed towards Ryoga, his characteristic "What a haul!" making echoes through the mall.

Immediately, Ryoga cleared the bench, cocking his umbrella under one arm, preparing to lash out. Ranma went up, perching on the railing of the second floor. Rei ducked behind a planter and reached under her vest...

And Asuka walked out of the store. "What s going on, guys..." She glanced right, then turned and flung herself out of the way. The manic Happosai cleared them before they finished reacting, headed for the other side of the mall.

"HEY! YOU OLD GEEZER!" Somebody else leapt from the second story, landing directly in front of the pervert. Black hair, feminine looks, earrings... had to be Pantyhose Tarou, Ryoga thought. He allowed himself a moment to envy Tarou s cool vest and bracers... Happosai pulled up, stopped, and glared at the intruder.

"What s the matter, Pantyhose? Don t like your name?" Happosai jumped in the other direction, doubling back on himself. Tarou roared in anger and pursued. As he passed, he locked gazes with Ryoga for a second... No, he hadn t forgotten anything, it seemed. The two retreated for the mall s other exit.

"Wha... was that..." Asuka squeaked as Ranma lightly hopped down from his perch. "That was that old pervert, from the dojo?"

"Yeah, and Tarou." Ranma was grimacing. "Damn, I didn t know that he was back in town. So much for a perfect day, huh, Ryoga?"

"You said it... though if he s after Happosai, we won t have to worry about him for a while."

"And no bottle full of Jusenkyo water. Man, I m glad I don t have to go through THAT again."

Rei stood up, adjusting her vest. "Go through what again?"

"Long story."

"I never heard that one." Ryoga checked the straps on his umbrella, sniffed, noticed smoke pouring out of the ruined lingerie store. "You know, we should probably go now."

Asuka nodded. "Good idea... how perverted can that guy be? I mean, he even called the other guy pantyhose!"

Ranma fell over laughing, and Ryoga would have as well if Rei hadn t been right next to him. As it was, she was having trouble propping him up... but it... funny funny... he couldn t stop laughing.

"What s so funny?" Asuka shifted both her shopping bags to her left hand, and produced a small mallet in her right hand.

Ryoga barely noticed the impact. He managed to stop laughing his guts out and settled for a quiet chuckle. "Um... it s..." He couldn t do it. He was laughing so hard that it was hurting...

Ranma pulled himself up the side of a fountain. Then, laughing, fell over the side, which set Ryoga off even harder. Ranma emerged, female and sputtering, and not laughing anymore. "That s his NAME, Asuka." Well, maybe still laughing, a little.

Asuka stared at the two of them, first in disbelief, and then with a silly smile on her face. "You re serious! Oh, man..." She started laughing herself...

Rei, however, was not amused. "Um... Ryoga... you re heavy. Get off."

"Oh, right. Sorry."

Gosunkugi kicked a rock as he walked home. Sure, his new job was great, and Yuka was easy on the eyes, but he still wasn t really happy. How could he be? Saotome was in there, buying a ring, and Ryoga WASN T threatening to pound his face in for being unfaithful... which meant that the ring was for Akane, and that Gosunkugi himself had zero chance.

Not that he d ever really had any chance. It was all just a lot of wishful thinking, right? Akane, sure, she was beautiful, she was a gift to mankind, but she wouldn t ever have seen anything attractive in a lurker in the shadows anyway. He rubbed his eyes, knowing that no amount of sleep would ever erase the bags from under them, and sighed to himself.

Of course, with his hands covering his eyes, there had been no way he could have avoided running into that person, right? He picked himself up off of the sidewalk and prepared to run for it... he didn t harbor any illusions about his ability as a martial artist. At least his camera bag didn t get jostled too badly.

Looking at the other person, he felt a surge of adrenaline... it was Mousse. Sure, he wasn t the most deadly of fighters, not in those big white robes, especially not with his severe myopia, but he was still enough to flatten Gosunkugi to the ground five times over. Mousse pushed his glasses from his forehead onto his nose and squinted. "Oh. It s you, Gosunkugi. Watch where you re going, will you?"

"Sorry, Mousse... hey, you seem depressed." And he did. Mousse was slumped over in his stance, his eyes were... well, masked behind white frosted lenses, but his FACE sure looked droopy. "Shampoo again?"

"Yeah. Why doesn t she understand that I love her? Is it something that I m doing wrong? Am I ugly? Am I stupid?"

Oh, Gosunkugi was tempted to give THAT a straight answer, but he wasn t in that good of a mood at the moment. "Here... I know something that might cheer you up..."

"Yeah?" Mousse looked up with a hopeful expression.

"Yeah, listen to this. Guess who came into the shop today?"

"Um..."

"Never mind. It was Saotome."

Mousse clenched a fist. "How can he toy with poor Shampoo s heart like he does? It s not right."

"Hey, but you ll love this. He was buying a ring... for Akane." Gosunkugi bent over, his dejection apparent on his face.

"He was... no way. No chance. You re joking. Don t toy with me like that, voodoo boy."

"No, really, it s true... Ryoga was watching and didn t get upset, so..."

Mousse fell back, digested that tidbit. "But that s GREAT! He s really going to... YES!" He pumped the fist in the air. "If he s married to Akane, then Shampoo will be mine! Gos, I could kiss you!"

"I d really rather that you didn t, okay?"

The deliriously happy Mousse started running down the street towards Nerima, shouting his joy at the top of his lungs. Well, Gosunkugi thought, at least this was making SOMEBODY happy. Somehow, he resisted the urge to put a hex on Mousse.

Kaji took a sip of his tea. Truly, it was a MOST excellent tea... He looked up, smiled at the lovely dream that had served it to him. Tendo didn t deserve such a wonderful daughter.

"So, tell me, Ryoji-kun, what are YOU up to these days?" Age had treated Soun Tendo well, as he d matured from a rather gangly young man into an imposing and dignified father. He still had a laugh in his voice. Of course, he d broken down and cried no less than three times since Kaji had arrived, an hour ago... Shame about his wife, to have survived the Second Impact and then die of a disease.

"Ah, I ve been to Germany, for several years. In fact, I just got in last week, and thought I d see how you were doing. An impressive dojo this is, you know." Well, aside from the "patched" look. This place must see more property damage than... adjectives failed Kaji.

"Well, you flatter me, Ryoji-kun. We don t really have many students, although things will pick up once my daughter marries, surely."

Kaji smiled at the young woman... uh... Kasumi? Yes, that was her name. "Surely your future husband is a man blessed beyond all compare."

She laughed, lightly, and said, "Oh, no, he s talking about Akane, Ryoji-san."

"What? You hide yet more daughters from me, Tendo-kun?" He arched an eyebrow.

"Well, you yourself told me what a wolf you were in your younger days... she should be back shortly from her morning exercise run."

Hm... the name "Akane" seemed familiar. Not from his old memories, but something very recent. Work? Well, yes, it pretty much had to be... "I should look forward to meeting her, then."

Kaji noticed three forms coming over the garden wall. "Do you suffer frequent attacks, Tendo-kun?"

"Ah, yes, we do..." Soun glanced out the open porch door, seemed to recognize the forms. One headed toward the house, while the other two, no, three now, headed for the dojo.

"Hey, Tendo-san. Is Pop around?" Kaji turned... WOW. She was gorgeous. Maybe seventeen, bright eyes, cute face, ample... something grabbed his hindbrain and twisted, HARD. Missing something, missing something... red hair. In a ponytail. Red Chinese shirt with wooden ties. Black silk pants, baggy. Warning bells went off in Kaji s head.

"No, son, he s out right now. Look, here s a old friend of mine, Kaji Ryoji. Kaji, meet Ranma Saotome."

The little warning bells were replaced by the blaring klaxons. He KNEW that name. Oh, but he d never expected any meeting to go like THIS... he extended his hand. "THE Ranma Saotome? I ve heard a lot about you." Good, good, his body was working on autopilot.

"Pleased to meetcha." Ranma grabbed his hand, pumped twice, and then headed towards the kitchen with a totally unnecessary bounce. "Kasumi, I m going to heat some water, all right?"

"That s fine, Ranma."

A little part of Kaji s mind realized that he was in shock. For now, it wasn t in the way, not badly, but he wasn t going to be able to keep a blas expression up for much longer. "Well... it s good to see you again, Tendo-kun. I... must go now, my job, you know..." Hm... he was breaking down already. "I shall see you again, I think."

"Thank you for stopping by. It s good to know that you survived, you know." Soun s face was completely open and happy.

Kaji stumbled out of the dojo, somehow managed to fumble the keys to his car into the lock. No, he couldn t drive like this, not through the hell that the Nerima road system comprised anyway... He closed the door and started walking. A good, stiff drink would be EXACTLY what he needed, right now. Yeah. Maybe a few of them.

And Misato was going to be furious. Beyond that. And he d have to tell her... right?

Ranma poured the contents of the kettle over his head, shifting back into his male form. After using the nearby towel to dry off and mop up the spilled water, he refilled the kettle and replaced it on the warmer. That had been a WONDERFUL idea. Well worth the price that Nabiki had overcharged him.

He walked into the dojo, deftly avoiding Ryoga s pack in the doorway. Asuka was STILL snickering about Tarou. Rei, however, was still completely stone-faced. Maybe she didn t think it was funny? "Hey, what s up?"

Ryoga stretched out on the mat. "Ah... not much. I just need to work out a couple of sore spots, you know."

Ranma grinned. "Yeah. You were pretty torn up last night."

"So were you."

"Was not," Ranma lied. "Besides, at least I got home by myself."

Ryoga lay his head back. "Yeah, whatever. I don t feel like fighting today anyway."

Rei walked over and started punching one of Akane s training dummies. She had no form, no stance, but the technique wasn t bad. It looked an awful lot like his own, with a little bit of Ryoga s mixed in. Whatever it was, it seemed to be working well on the dummy.

"Hey, Rei, go try to hit Ranma instead. He s better for practice."

"Okay." Rei dusted her hands off and started towards Ranma.

"What, don t I get a say in this?" He smiled. "Go ahead, I won t hit you."

Rei paused. "Um... won t this hurt him, Ryoga?"

"If you can hit ME, Rei, you re a lot better than you look." Ranma assumed a ready stance.

"Isn t he modest, Ryoga?" Asuka slumped against one of the walls, still laughing.

"Are you kidding? I m surprised he can fit his head through the door."

Rei frowned, slightly, and shifted her weight. Ranma read the first punch, smoothly dodged it, then the second, and fell into an easy rhythm. "Don t overextend that much, you don t get full striking power and it leaves you off-balance. Tighten your fists or you ll hurt your hands when you hit something. Try moving your left foot back a bit, to present more of a profile..."

It was uncanny, really. As soon as he pointed out a flaw in Rei s attacks, she fixed it. Sure, she overcorrected a couple of times, but... Ranma couldn t recall EVER seeing somebody work on their techniques this way. He threw his head down, ducking a particularly cunning strike. "Ha. ALMOST got me."

Rei squinted, then shifted slightly... and exploded in a blur of motion. Ranma quickly abandoned all pretense of smooth dodging and worked his hands and arms like windmills. One fist barely grazed the bottom of his chin, and he realized that his jaw open as wide as it would go. She broke the attack off and sank to the floor, panting heavily.

Ranma did likewise, although he wasn t really winded. That was... well, incredible. Rei had down the Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken technique. Sure, it was fairly sloppy, slow, and rough for that attack... but she d only seen it ONCE. And tried it twice, unless she was practicing somewhere else. Or maybe she was learning from Cologne? No, not possible, the FIRST thing the old hag would have worked on would have been the punch technique.

Ryoga sat up. "Wow, that was pretty cool, Rei."

"Really?" She flexed her fists, painfully. Well, Ranma assumed it was hurting, from the way the tendons were moving in odd directions, but it didn t show on her face. "But it s not working right."

"Well, there are a few things... hell, not really. How did you do that?"

Rei blinked. "Don t YOU know?"

"Yeah, I know how I do it. But it took me a couple of weeks of intense practice to pull that off. And I was a lot better than you to start. Have you ever met Cologne?"

"Huh? No."

Ryoga broke in. "Yes, you did. We ate ramen over there, remember?"

"What, the old woman?"

"Yeah, that s Cologne. Go talk to her and show her that, and I ll bet she can train you. Just promise not to use it on me, okay?"

"Uh..." Rei blinked twice. "Sure."

Asuka yawned. "Yeah, yeah, very impressive, we re all worshipping you."

Ryoga flared his aura again, this time with a good bit more green in it, but Asuka merely responded with her tongue... and a water pistol. The bastard! No, she didn t shoot it, she was just brandishing it in a vaguely threatening manner.

Ranma heard a noise from outside. One person, running, in through the gate... ah. "Hey, Akane s back."

"Well, that s our cue... come on, Ryoga, we ve got to go home." Asuka stood up and walked over to him, offering a hand up.

"Uh, why?"

"Stupid. OBVIOUSLY, Ranma has something to GIVE to Akane... right?"

"OH, yeah, right. Come on, Rei. Let s go." Ryoga hopped up and shouldered his pack. "Look, Ranma, make sure you treat her all right. Maybe try THINKING before you talk. I won t stand for her crying..."

Ranma bit back an angry reply. Hey, that was easy. "Okay, P-chan. Now scoot."

End of part 12

Comments, questions, flames go to akent .edu 


	13. Chapter 13

Ryoga stepped out of the dojo. Odd, really... a month ago, even THINKING of Ranma and Akane together made his stomach churn. Today, though, he had actually forked over the money for their engagement ring, and now he was taking Rei and Asuka away so that they could be alone together.

Actually, Rei was taking him away, and it had been Asuka s idea to make themselves scarce in the first place, and he sure couldn t think of what ELSE he d spend his ridiculously high salary on... but it still held. Ryoga couldn t shake the feeling that something had gone fundamentally wrong with his world.

But he couldn t change his mind, now could he? It would be so easy... and it wouldn t change anything about his original decision. He still wasn t safe to be around, he still destroyed everything around him, and he still wasn t sure that he d come back from the next Angel attack. All in all, it was better this way.

It still hurt.

He was shaken out of his reverie by something tugging on his bandana. Not hard enough to actually make him turn his head, but he did anyway... Rei was hanging from the back of his head, her shoes dragging on the concrete. He realized that he was running, had been for several blocks. Behind him, just behind the last hill, he could see Asuka s hair and the neural sensors that she used as barrettes.

He slowed down, heard Rei shouting over the wind noise, "...down! You re running the wrong..." Rei released his head and hopped off as he came to a stop. "Where were you going, Ryoga?"

"Um... nowhere in particular, I guess..." He scratched the back of his head. "Where ARE we going?"

"You said that we should go home." Rei looked at him with a vaguely VERY vaguely puzzled expression.

Asuka managed to catch up to the pair, and leaned against a nearby lamppost, breathing very heavily. "You... where... did... you... think... you..."

Ryoga looked around. They were still in Nerima, it couldn t have been too far with him carrying Rei and Asuka able to catch up that quickly... ah. He spotted the Nekohanten out of the corner of his eye. "Hey, Asuka, hungry?"

Asuka took a deep breath, nodded, said, "Um, sure, I guess. Your treat."

Feh. Like he needed money anyway. "No problem." He turned around, headed off toward the noodle shop... and felt Rei tugging at his headband again. He let her guide him in the other direction.

Paradise Lost, part 13 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Gainax or Rumiko Takahashi -  
Cologne looked up from the counter as the three entered her home. A smile split her ancient features as she recognized the first two. Ryoga, while depressingly dim and na ve, was always a lark and easy to manipulate too... and Rei, whatever she was, was something new in a life of old and familiar things.

The third one, though, now SHE looked interesting as well. Brown hair, almost reddish, though not the shocking red of her son-in-law. Very ornate, if cumbersome, barrettes. She couldn t have been older than fourteen or fifteen, and wasn t a fighter... but she moved with the same unbeatable confidence as Ranma. Cologne chuckled to herself. Digging out secrets and the like was one of her favorite, and most useful, hobbies.

The three sat down at the counter. "Hey, how s it going, baasan?" Ryoga was not quite smiling, in that depressed manner of his. Rei, who had taken the seat next to the young wanderer, winced a bit at the last word. Again, an interesting observation.

"Well, you know, at my age the mere fact of going is an accomplishment." She allowed herself a dry cackle. "My, my, Ryoga. Keep this up and you ll have a regular harem going. Who knew your tastes ran to younger women?"

Both Ryoga and the new girl went scarlet at those words, exactly as planned. Rei, however... was that a blush? Cologne cursed her inexperience at reading the faces of emotionless albinos before she remembered that she had never MET any emotionless albinos. Besides, if it WAS a blush, then it just meant that Rei had an excellent poker face, an admirable trait. Another trait that would have to be drummed into her son-in-law...

"WHAT are you talking about, you shriveled MONKEY!" The new girl shot up from her seat, made a reaching motion... oh ho! THIS was new... Cologne lashed out with her staff, knocking the mallet... she looked away as the mallet... ceased to exist? One of these days, she would have to sit down with Mousse and find out just where all of those things came from, anyway. Sometime FAR in the future.

"Now, you didn t really expect for that to work, did you, dearie?"

Ryoga placed a hand on the hilt of his umbrella. "Asuka, no. You really don t want to get in a fight with Cologne."

"Good to know that I have some respect from SOMEBODY around here."

"Respect?" Ryoga snorted. "You play dirty, that s all."

"Just to win, boy. Just to win. And I DON T come into people s houses and insult them while trying to ambush them without introducing myself first." Cologne turned to Asuka, who had retaken her seat and was shaking her right hand. Well, that counter probably DID sting quite a bit. "I take it that you re an Eva pilot, too?"

Rei glanced at Ryoga, then back to Cologne. "I don t remember Ryoga telling you that."

"Of course he didn t have to tell me. How many OTHER people get picked up by NERV helicopters at your age? Not to mention how the big purple one was wandering around yesterday. And I HOPE that you don t think that I can t recognize my own techniques." She nodded at Ryoga. "Though that certainly was a... different way of using it, to be sure."

"Um, thanks, I think." Ryoga fished inside of his bandana. "Can we get some lunch?"

"Put your money away, boy. Go spend it on your girlfriend." Turning to fetch three bowls, Cologne didn t see the two gaping mouths, nor Rei s sudden burst of silent laughter, nor the burst of hand gestures that Ryoga used to calm the other two down.

"Three, then. No meat on yours, right?" Rei nodded. "And what about you... Asuka?"

"Double meat." Asuka looked at Ryoga. "Exactly WHAT kind of place is this, anyway?"

"Oversized ramen stand, really. Cologne calls it the Nekohanten."

Well! Oversized ramen stand! "You re certainly cheeky today, boy."

"You re Cologne?" Asuka saw the nod. "Hey, Ryoga, why would Ranma say that SHE should train Rei..." Both of the others turned to stare at her. "What?"

"Oh ho! Now this I have to hear about. What in your tiny mind, Ryoga, makes you think that I would take her on as a student?"

Ryoga s eyes narrowed. "It wasn t MY idea, baasan," and again Rei flinched at the word... "but it s a good idea. Rei needs some help with her Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken technique, and you KNOW Ranma s not very patient..."

Cologne felt her eyes go wide open in shock. Immediately, she looked at Rei again, this time probing with more senses than the physical. She wasn t strong, wasn t a martial artist, wasn t trained... theoretically, it should be IMPOSSIBLE for her to even attempt such an advanced technique... the other alternative came to mind.

A single spring took her halfway across the restaurant, sending the few diners present scurrying under their tables and for the exit. A simple flick of her arm leveled the staff directly at Rei... Ryoga was already off of his stool and headed for the dubious cover of a table, while Asuka had fallen off of hers trying to track Cologne s sudden movement. Rei...

Sat there. "Well?" Cologne made a beckoning gesture. "Come on, then, I ve seen through you. If you re here to assassinate me, I don t mind, but at least come out and fight me in the open!" Rei just stared. No, she wasn t faking it, that was real incomprehension on that face. "You mean that you re NOT here to kill me?"

Rei opened her mouth, paused for a second, and stuttered, "N... no?"

Oh, dear. Cologne thought of a dozen ways to salvage the situation, chose one. Instantly, she jumped back across the counter and started dishing up three bowls of ramen. "Well, that s quite all right then. Doubtless you understand."

Ryoga picked himself up off the floor and returned to his stool. "Understand what, baasan?" Cologne noted that Rei did NOT react to that word, this time. Too stunned? "I mean, it s not every day that you get scared of something."

"Well, you learn not to take those kinds of chances at my age. After all, if somebody DID know the Amaguriken technique, and could hide their aura from me in such a spectacular fashion as to appear almost normal, then it should be OBVIOUS that they are here to try to kill me." Cologne waved her staff at Ryoga in an accusing manner. "You shouldn t joke around with such things, boy."

Asuka popped her head over the counter, with a predatory look on her face. "So, are you really a secret undercover assassin, Rei? It would explain a lot..."

"Uh..." Rei still looked shocked. Well, somewhat shocked, but given her other emotional responses, it was a fair contrast. "I don t think so..."

"What do you mean, joke?" Ryoga kept glancing back and forth, as if he expected something else to happen.

"Simple, boy. There s NO chance that she has mastered the technique. It would take years of learning simply to get her to the level where she could understand the method of the technique, and years more of physical conditioning before she could successfully attempt it." Cologne placed a bowl of ramen in front of Asuka, subtly hoping that she would choke while eating it. She didn t HAVE to laugh that much.

"Um..." Rei s eyes focused on Cologne. "What are you talking about?"

Cologne threw a superior smirk at Ryoga before answering. "The Amaguriken combat technique, child. It involves moving the hands with incredible speed, enough to overcome ANY defense, as Ryoga will doubtless tell you. Want to see?"

With that, Cologne popped a smoldering log from her wood-fired stove and flipped it into the air. A second to concentrate... THERE, and her hands exploded into motion, striking the log over and over, whittling it down into a rather nice pair of chopsticks. "Here you go, child." She handed the chopsticks to Asuka, who promptly ceased staring and attacked her lunch.

Rei narrowed her own eyes... Cologne felt the concentration build before she moved, managed to pop a second log up as a distraction before she fell back... and Rei attacked that log. FAST. Cologne looked on in awe... well, no. As far as things went, it was a very poor sort of Amaguriken, the hands were barely blurring for that matter, and her form and balance were ALL wrong... but as Rei let her arms drop to the counter, and the air conditioning unit snatched the last of the sawdust from the air, a rough pair of chopsticks clattered into Rei s bowl.

Cologne recovered first. She closed her mouth, swallowed, and turned to stare at Ryoga. "Where, boy, are we and what did you do to my reality?"

Her words shocked him out of his own trance. "You re asking ME that question? It s real, though. I don t get it myself."

Cologne busied herself with preparing Ryoga s bowl of ramen. "Well, child, I must say that that was impressive. Where did you learn that?"

Rei drooped on the counter, obviously tired. "I... saw Ranma do it twice."

"TWICE?"

"Yes, twice." Rei flexed both hands, which both were scraped as if she d tried to use them to chop wood. Which, in essence, she just had. "Is it right?"

"Er, no, not quite yet, child." Thoughts danced madly inside of Cologne s head. Here, a girl, with the raw potential to perform a difficult technique and the learning curve of a master... one that had no knowledge of the art, of the sacrifices that it entailed... it was horrifying. It was an abomination to everything that her tribe had stood for in three thousand years of history.

It was PERFECT! She felt a childlike glee at the thought. Finally, a student that could learn ALL that she had to teach. And she couldn t even be blamed for doing it, after all, Rei would need to know these things to defend humanity from those strange invaders... pity about her physical conditioning, though. Cologne wasn t USED to dealing with unconditioned novices.

She felt the silly grin on her face and decided not to hide it. "I would very much like to show you a few things, then... if you don t mind."

"Um... no, I don t mind." Rei started to eat her ramen.

"You re serious, baasan? That s GREAT!"

Cologne felt her natural suspicion returning. "And why are YOU so enthusiastic about the idea, boy?"

He leaned over the counter, whispered, "Well, you know how it is around here... I don t mind looking after her and all, but I still get worried, you know?"

"Ah. Of course." She placed Ryoga s bowl in front of him. "Well, eat up. After all, you should preserve your strength for fighting those things."

"I don t use MY strength against those things," Ryoga said, around a mouthful of noodles. "It s the Eva."

"Well, there IS that. So, how on Earth did they pick YOU to pilot one of those things?"

Asuka snickered. "We ve been asking ourselves the same question."

The door to the caf opened, and another figure stepped through. He was wearing a white gi, stained with mud and dirt, traveling sandals, and a large backpack. The harsh sunlight silhouetted him against the Nerima afternoon... light glinted off of his glasses as he pushed them against his nose, and she could see his bandana as he closed the door.

The same pattern as Ryoga s. Yellow background, black rectangles. Was there a sale at the lost boy s fabric store? She dismissed THAT as too much of a coincidence.

The man walked up to the counter, sat down. He had to be in his late forties, from his stance and walk, but he looked ten years older. A weathered face. "Excuse me..." He pulled out a map of Japan. "Can you show me where I am?"

The three pilots glanced over at him. Rei smiled. Asuka flinched. Ryoga merely swallowed his mouthful of ramen and said, "Hey, Dad."

"DAD?" Cologne looked more closely at the newcomer. "That makes you a Hibiki... hm... and I always thought that you were a legend."

The elder Hibiki nodded. "Whereas I have seen you before, I believe."

"Really? The wandering Hibiki was a popular tale about ten years ago in the village. They never said anything about you settling down and having a child, though."

"Well, that s understandable, we never got out much after Ryoga s birth. Aside from the obvious, of course." A cloud passed across his features. "Well, Rei, I should get home. Let s go."

Cologne clucked and waved her staff. "Not until she s done with her ramen. She ll need the strength and nutrition for what s ahead."

"And who are YOU to be telling her what she needs?" Hibiki-elder s hands were gripping the rail of the counter.

"I m her instructor, and I won t stand for a busybody HIBIKI getting in my way. What s she to you, anyway, Hibiki?"

He growled. "She s my da... the pilot of Eva 00, that s who!"

Ryoga cleared his throat. "Ah, Cologne, meet my father, Gendo Hibiki. He s in charge of NERV. Dad, this is Cologne, queen of the Chinese Amazons."

She immediately burst into laughter, soured slightly by the fact that he also did the same, instantly. "Who put a Hibiki in charge of..." She fell over from laughter. She couldn t REMEMBER falling over, it had been that long.

Gendo breathed deeply. Ah, life was good... he had just had a heaping bowl of really good ramen, Rei was showing promise as a martial artist, and he d finally got the crick out of his neck. Decisions had been made and there was work to do... he would have started whistling, but he didn t want to scare anybody.

And scare them it would... he realized, for the first time, that his personality inside the walls of the NERV compound was completely different from the free spirit carrying his backpack around now. It had been SO LONG since he d been able to go out and run. His soul felt refreshed.

Only one thing could have made the day more perfect... one thing that couldn t happen, of course. He didn t dwell on it. Plenty of time to brood and sulk and generally creep out those around him when he got back.

"So, Ryoga... it seems that you have quite a reputation around here."

Ryoga turned around, walking backwards as the group headed for the nearest train station. "Yeah? You think so?"

Gendo nodded. "It s been too long for people to remember me, excepting old bats like that Cologne. Yet EVERY person I met knew, right off, that I was a Hibiki."

"Really? How?" Ryoga grinned.

"As if you didn t know."

Gendo stepped into his office. Fuyutsuki had finished repairing the door... good. It should keep, too, since he didn t feel like smashing any more doors for a while. He trudged over to his closet door, easing the backpack s straps from his shoulders.

No luck. He d found the restroom.

Well, if he d come in through THAT door, and THIS door wasn t the closet, then it had to be that OTHER door.

Still no luck. He d found the hallway.

For a moment, Gendo wished that he d put big signs up on the doors. That would save him some time... but he couldn t afford the humiliation. People would try to stick signs on his rear end, next.

After three more tries, he finally opened the door to his closet. He shucked the gi and sandals, prepared to climb into his working clothes, and then realized that he had managed to get quite grimy indeed on his little jaunt.

Ha! He d outsmarted fate this time. By cleverly leaving the door to the restroom OPEN, he could see inside it from the door to his closet and traverse the distance easily. He permitted himself a small laugh.

Hyuuga hated walking by Hibiki-san s office... in atmosphere, it was much like the small stretch leading from a Death Row prison cell to the execution chamber. But it WAS situated right between the command center and his own office, so it wasn t really convenient to go around it... ah, well. Nothing to do but to head straight by, he thought.

Hm... the door s open. Didn t Fuyutsuki fix that? He turned his head as he walked by, idly curious... just in time to see a nearly nude Gendo crossing the back of the office.

Hyuuga was quite proud of his self-control as he proceeded to walk, not run, on to his own office. Walk very, very quickly, but not run.

Ryoga stepped off of the train and headed for the Geofront exit. Sure, he hadn t had to go to class today, but damned if Ritsuko didn t jump on them right away for more synch testing. He barely recalled the little, buzzing headache that those tests always gave him. Not much, as pain goes, but still enough to annoy.

He fumbled for his identification card to open the exit door, saw Rei swipe hers through the reader. It flashed green, and the heavy blast door started to grind open... and stopped. The lights died for a second, and then other, red lights came on.

Asuka chuckled. "You broke it, Rei."

"I did not..." Rei looked at her card. Ryoga finally managed to fish his out of his backpack, a tricky task when one is still wearing said pack and only using one arm to look, and ran his through the reader. No response. Hm... maybe it s dirty? He checked the magnetic strip, but it looked to be all right.

"Idiots. Let me try." Asuka slashed her card through the reader. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again. Still nothing. "You really DID break it, Rei."

Ryoga turned to look at Rei... man, she looked downright SPOOKY in red light. "What happened to the lights, Rei?"

Kaji leaned against the wall of the elevator, using the break in his daily schedule to try to sort out his thoughts. He d have to check further, that s all. Besides, right now he didn t have anything but one hell of a crazy story to tell anybody... he didn t believe it himself.

Item: He d met Ranma Saotome. Item: The Ranma Saotome he d met had been a girl. A healthy girl, he recalled. Item: The Ranma Saotome he d been told about was most definitely NOT a girl.

Hm... what, then, were the possibilities?

Misato had lied to him? No way. He could read her fairly well, and she d been telling the truth back then. Really, she was a lousy liar.

Maybe she d been mistaken? Yeah, right, and maybe Gendo was gay.

He briefly toyed with the idea of a sex change operation before the thought gagged him. No, that wasn t really happening either.

Kaji didn t understand, and Kaji didn t like not understanding. It wasn t good for his health, especially considering his line of work. No other way around it; he d just have to snoop some more. At least he knew what to snoop FOR this time.

The elevator door dinged open. A quick glance at the counter told him that he was on one of the administrative levels. When he returned his eyes to the door, he noticed that he wasn t alone in the elevator anymore.

As usual, Misato had her effect on him. Her hair moved like a living thing, although at this point it was a ghastly purple living thing. When had she dyed it? He allowed himself a moment to appreciate certain other of her attributes before clearing his throat. She spun around, obviously she hadn t seen him, and started.

And then her face fell. He winced, knowing that he deserved that look... the irresponsibility of his youth had hurt her, years ago, at a time when she really shouldn t have been hurt. A sigh escaped his lips, and he decided to follow it with a greeting. "Good afternoon, Misato." He bit back the usual compliment on her appearance... it probably would just get him in more trouble, at this point.

Misato took a step back, as far away from him as the confines of the elevator would allow. "Just my luck, taking THIS car."

He grinned. No WAY that he would let THAT kind of comment go unremarked. "Rather, it is MY luck, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." She tapped her fingers on her clipboard... and the elevator stopped. Emergency lighting came on, and she dropped the clipboard. "NO."

"Do you suppose there s a blackout, Misato?"

"Not possible. There s THREE different power systems. Even if the main server goes out, there s still the sub server. And a backup server to boot!"

"So, now what?"

Gendo unfolded his hands. Well, now, he hadn t quite expected it to happen now... he opened his drawer, fishing blindly... ah. There s the box. He pulled out a cardboard box, opened it, and dumped out a few candles and a Ronson lighter. A few more seconds and he had one of them lit... just as soon as Fuyutsuki lit a small paper lantern.

Ritsuko glanced around, took in the accusing glares coming from all sides, and said, "It s not my fault..."

Rei stopped walking at the door leading into the sub access tunnel. Once they had decided to return to NERV headquarters and see what was going on, she had remembered this particular walkway as being a fairly fast way to go back... she had NOT remembered seeing this door along the way. Without any power, it wasn t going to open..."

"Hey, Ryoga, look... there s a crank. Open this thing up, will you?" Asuka gestured to the side of the door.

He grumbled as he moved to the manual release. "And why is it that I have to do it?"

"What, are you stupid? YOU RE the unnaturally strong one."

"Good grunt point. grunt It s grunt stuck, though." Ryoga tugged on the handle. "If I try any harder, I ll wreck it."

"There s an auxiliary tunnel five hundred meters behind us that should get us around." Rei turned around... heard the sound of cracking knuckles, and then thunder. No, not thunder... she turned back, saw Ryoga standing next to the smoking hole in the doorway. "Never mind."

Ryoga shook his hand. "Damn, that hurt."

"What, did the mighty Ryoga go and hurt his widdle hand?" Asuka laughed.

"That technique s not MADE to work on armor plate, Asuka." He extended one finger. "Come here and I ll show you."

"Oh, NO, you don t."

Rei stepped through the hole, hearing the sound of metal fragments sliding under her feet. "Come on."

Aoba stepped through the door, over the three NERV technicians that had managed to pry it open... man, that must have strained something. He could still see the bobbing flashlight held by Ritsuko as she and Maya headed for the control room access hatch.

He sighed, patted the guitar strapped to his back. Naturally, just when things were winding down for the day, something ELSE had to go and happen. He hoped that his friends would be able to make the gig without him... come to think of it, they couldn t do much with the power out either. Oh well.

Be just perfect if an Angel attacked now, though, wouldn t it?

Maya dropped back, loomed up beside him, and whapped him over the head with her clipboard. "What are you talking about? Don t say things like that, it s bad luck?"

Aoba rubbed his head, careful not to muss his hair too much, and ducked a second swing. "I didn t SAY anything."

"But you swish were thinking it!"

"And just HOW do you know what I was thinking?"

Maya stopped swinging the clipboard. "Woman s intuition. It s SO obvious."

"Quit it, you two." Ritsuko pulled a small lever and swung a wall panel out into the hallway, then started up the rungs concealed behind the recess in the wall.

"Yes, sempai." Maya hurried up behind her.

Aoba ducked through the panel, careful not to catch the neck of his guitar, and banged his head on the first rung. "Woman s intuition, my butt."

"So, now what?" Ryoga rapped on the huge blast plate that sealed off the tunnel. "I can t break through this."

Rei frowned, almost imperceptibly. "There." She pointed at a small ventilation hatch in the plate. "We can go through that to the other side.

"It s seven feet up!" Asuka craned her neck to see.

"So?" Ryoga jumped up, barely bending his legs, and tore the grating off of the hatch. "Um... yeah, it goes through... but it s too small. I can t get through that."

Rei leapt up next to him. "I can." She ducked through the ventilation port, and Asuka could hear a tumbling sound on the other side.

"Are you okay?" Ryoga stuck his head into the hatch.

"Yes. It slopes downward." Rei s voice had an unusual pitch... Asuka guessed that it was caused by echoes. "Come on."

Ryoga shrugged. "I m DEFINITELY too big to get in here."

Heh. Too big, was he? "Ryoga, can I borrow your canteen? I m thirsty."

"Uh, sure." He removed it from its sling on the back of his pack and tossed it to her. Asuka promptly removed the cap and splashed Ryoga with a few swallows of the water.

"Bweeeeee!" Ryoga shifted, and his (much smaller) porcine form slid down the vent. Asuka gathered his clothing and threw it into the vent after him, then followed it with his umbrella. (HEAVY!) After a good bit of heavy lifting, she managed to boost the pack into the vent as well, then pulled herself back up to follow him.

On the other side, she was confronted by a puzzled Rei holding a small, black, and very angry Ryoga. "What? I couldn t think of a better idea." She opened the pack and pulled out the thermos she knew that she would find inside. "Um, Rei, you might want to set him down and turn around."

"Why?"

"Oh, never mind." Asuka turned her head and flung a cupful of the warm water at the pig...

"ASUKA! YOU ARE DEAD!" She snapped her head around at Ryoga s shout... snapped it back away as quickly as she could. "Well... as soon as..." She heard him scramble for his clothing. "Damn it, you could have ASKED, at least."

"But it wouldn t have been as funny!" She turned around, seeing a startled Rei (well, a bit startled, but still...) and Ryoga, blushing like two sunsets. "Let s go."

"Well, what do we have to work with?" Gendo folded his arms. "Anybody?"

"Um, well..." Ibuki fidgeted as she spoke. Nice girl, really, but no confidence. "There s only nine of the twenty-five hundred or so power circuits functioning. We ve got them dedicated to Central Dogma and the Magi. We don t have enough left over to keep running the air scrubbers, but there s a lot of air in the hangars, so we ll be okay there."

Ritsuko coughed. "None of the phones are working, and we re too deep for any other kind of communication with the surface. We could always power up a line from here, there s enough batteries for it, but none of the exchanges are working."

"People should have made it to the shelters already; that s standard procedure for power loss, and they re all well equipped for power losses." Fuyutsuki grimaced. "However, we don t have any way of getting a repair team to inspect the breakers, and no way to get in touch with one, so it ll be a while before we re back online."

"Wait a moment. You say that we could power a line but the exchanges are down?" A plan formed in Gendo s mind.

"Yeah, that s it." Aoba looked at him, puzzled. "Why?"

"We have a dedicated line from the JDF headquarters. No exchanges at all. We can have their headquarters relay the messages."

Fuyutsuki looked at him in shock. "But the security breach! You re just going to tell them that our power is out?"

"We have to minimize the time that this facility is out of action. There isn t any other defense against the Angels." Gendo walked over to his station in the command center, pulled a red telephone out of a drawer. "Besides, we..."

The phone rang, and he dropped it on the desk in shock. Aoba and Ibuki both started laughing. He grabbed the receiver... "Yes?"

"This is JDF 3rd provisional regiment, second battalion, communications. We ve picked up something inbound, headed towards Tokyo-3. Odds are that it s an Angel. Estimated time of arrival is one hour, ten minutes."

"Understood." He dropped the handset, turned to his staff. "Prepare for an Evangelion dispatch. We have one hour before we are attacked."

"An Angel?" Ritsuko gasped. "But right now..."

"We can prepare the Eva by hand, if we have to. Fuyutsuki, you re in charge here. Everybody else, go to the hangar."

As the bridge staff left the command center, Fuyutsuki sighed. "And who s going to pilot the Eva, Gendo?" He thought for a second. "Wait a minute. They re all FOLLOWING GENDO." Immediately, he started after the retreating group, hoping to run them down before they got lost in the labyrinth of access tunnels. "Where is that Katsuragi when you need her?"

Misato fanned herself with her jacket. Man, but it was getting hot in the elevator... they d been stuck for half an hour already, and nothing had happened. The phones didn t work, the buttons didn t work, even a quick prayer hadn t produced any results.

Great. Stuck in a closed, hot elevator with Kaji for an indeterminate amount of time. Not for the first time, she wondered if the Creator was just a jerk or if he/she/it specifically had it in for her. At least he was acting normal for a change.

Come to think of it, he wasn t acting normal. He wasn t talking, wasn t looking at her, wasn t doing ANYTHING for that matter. "Hey, Kaji?"

"Yeah?" Well, at least he was as bored as she was.

"It s hot in here, isn t it?"

He nodded. "Yeah, very hot." He shrugged off his leather jacket, as if he hadn t noticed the heat until she brought it up.

"So, have you found out anything?"

He shrugged. "A couple of things."

"Like what?" She really wasn t interested, but aside from talking to him, there wasn t anything else to do, and nothing safer to talk about.

"Not much... There s a couple of things that I ve got to tell you, but I can t yet. I need to find out more first..."

Misato felt her heart beat louder. No, those words were uncomfortably close to other subjects best left undisturbed. "So, what about your old friend Tendo? Or that redhead, Ranma?"

"Exactly those things. I ll tell you when I m sure..." He shifted from where he was sitting against the wall.

"Hey, Kaji, it s a coincidence, her being called Ranma. Right?" Of course it was... but she would feel better when he told her that.

"I don t believe in coincidences any more." Kaji brought his hands up, bracing them on his knees, and rested his chin on them. "Not any more."

"What kind of crazy answer is THAT? You jerk. The moment that I think you might, just MAYBE, get sympathetic for ONCE in your MISERABLE life, you go and say something STUPID like THAT!" Argh! How could one man be so annoying? How could he make her so angry?

"I give up." He stopped cupping his chin and rested his face in his hands.

Rei paused at a fork in the tunnel. She really hadn t tried to learn all of the access tunnels, since she really hadn t ever thought that she might need to know, and Gendo hadn t told her to anyway... "I think it s to the right."

Asuka snorted. "Yeah, right. You think? No way, we ve been turning right for almost ten minutes now. If we keep going like that, we ll just be running around in circles. I say left."

"No, it s not that way." Rei THOUGHT that it was to the right.

"Hey, Ryoga, what do you think?"

He scratched the back of his head. "Um, I think Rei s right, since she knows what she s doing. Let s go to the right.

Asuka looked at Rei. "Left, then?"

Rei nodded. "Left it is." The two started off down the left fork of the tunnel.

"Hey, what happened to going right?" Ryoga set off behind them.

Hyuuga sat down outside of the laundromat and sighed. Sure, there wasn t another soul to be seen. Everybody else had found a shelter when all of the power went out... but did he have a shelter to go to? Nooooo. Could he get back down to NERV, despite all of the trains being dead? Nooooo. Did HE have any reason to be at a laundromat? Nooooo. He shook his head at the stack of laundry that he had in his lap. And was it Misato s fault that he was out here in the sun instead of down in the nice, cool, air-conditioned splendor of the command center, which doubtless was still working perfectly? Oh, yeah.

He clenched his fist and resolved, then and there, to find a different woman. Obviously, he d never had a chance at Misato. He d been helpful. He d been considerate. He d been reliable. He d been friendly. And then Kaji, curse his soul, had shown up, and Misato was still in love with him.

"DAMN IT ALL! What does it take to get a break around here? HUH?" He had dropped the laundry, realized that he was screaming at the top of his lungs in the middle of the street. Oops. Good thing nobody was around to hear him...

A hand reached out and tapped his shoulder. "Go get help." Hyuuga whirled around... it was a young man, short, black hair, earrings, and a REALLY nice vest. Stylish. "I swear. You city fools. Take your toys and your power away and you all just go to pieces!" He leapt... away. Turning around, Hyuuga spotted what might have been him on top of a building, half a block away...

Ah... he d flipped. Yeah, that was it. Mom always said that if he didn t get over that interest in giant robots, he was going to snap... and here it was. He d snapped. He hoped that NERV had a good psychologist on staff... no, wait, he d ask for somebody OUTSIDE of work. Yeah. Even better.

He turned around, saw something rustling in the pile of discarded laundry. A tiny, wizened dwarf burst from the top, chortled something like "sweet-o!", and took off running.

Okay, no, that was TOO weird not to be real. Sanity, Hyuuga thought, had to be something subjective.

Tarou laughed to himself. It was VERY pleasant, what with everybody gone out of the city. No cars. No lights. No noises... if the city was like this more often, he just might hang around after he hunted down the old pervert. Of course, it wouldn t last. Pity... it was much nicer this way.

He briefly wondered about the odd little man in the street. Weakling. A few hours stuck outside, and he was already crawling at the walls. Wouldn t last five minutes in the true wilderness. Sad, what civilization did to people.

Come to think of it, WHY aren t there any people around? Tarou couldn t make any sense of it... normally, this stinking cesspool was teeming with the unwashed masses of humanity. There had to be a simple and good reason why, he surmised, or otherwise there would be more idiots still around, like four-eyes back there.

A bass thrum sounded, then another. Another. Hm... catchy beat. He didn t mind music, but detested really loud music in really small cars. They could disturb the peace for miles, throwing natural rhythms out of sync. And from the sound of things, the source was getting closer... Tarou s face split into a wide grin. He might as well take his aggression out on a deserving target.

He leapt into the valley made by several tall buildings. At the speed it sounded to be moving... and the direction... it should cross out over here right... about... now.

He sprang forward, fist curled with the foreknuckles as the striking surface, ready to tear the roof off of a passing automobile. There was no automobile. Curious, he turned to his right... and his eyes widened as far as they would go.

That thing was, quite possibly, the biggest daddy longlegs that he had ever seen. Well, that s what it resembled. It couldn t be that, though, since they didn t come in a metallic black version, and nothing natural had THAT many eyes anyway. He could count a dozen on this side alone, along with a very large one directly under the thing s main body. Now THAT was stupid design...

He looked at it for a second, his natural curiosity warring with his sense of caution. Ah, hell with it, he was never much for caution anyway. Besides, it LOOKED harmless. One leap took him to the base of a long leg, and he stretched his hand out to touch...

"You know, I always thought that the Geofront was BELOW the city. How come we re going up?"

Asuka sighed as Ryoga looked at her. "Don t ask ME, you moron."

"I still say that we should have gone left."

Rei shot her a glance... that could have been shock, could have been humor, could just have been exasperation. As if Ryoga should be talking to ANYBODY about getting lost. She almost wished that he would do just that.

"Look..." Rei gestured ahead, at the glowing outline of a closed door.

"All right! See, I told you! This HAS to be it." Asuka ran forward and slammed the locking latch back, letting the door fall open. Immediately, she was blown backward by a blast of air and pushed down the tunnel for a few feet.

She saw Ryoga go to the door, gaping in awe... well, that thing was pretty impressive, even if it was creepy. Too many eyes... wait a minute. Ryoga wasn t looking at the Angel at all... He turned, grabbed her and Rei, and jumped away from the door.

Something flew through the door, striking it on the way in, and leaving patterns of cracks on the far wall of the tunnel. It was... a guy. He had on a vest, something that shone when he moved, really nice looking. His wristbands were the same stuff, a lot cooler than Ryoga s plain black bands. Earrings, too. And the face... well, it would have looked really nice if there wasn t so much smoke coming off the poor guy. "Hey, aren t you..."

Ryoga let them go and jumped back. "Tarou! What the hell are you doing here?"

"uh... Fancy to meet YOU here, pig-boy. You join the Girl Scouts, or was that fem-boy?"

Well, that had been rude. Ryoga sneered and continued. "Don t tell me you were stupid enough to go after that thing."

What was that name... oh yeah! Pantyhose Tarou. How could she have forgotten a name like that?

"Look, pig-boy, that thing, it s got some kind of barrier..." Tarou winced.

"AT field, I know. Look, we ll go get Eva and come back and kill it. You just stay here." Ryoga turned his back. "Let s go, guys. We ve gotta hurry."

"Are you having delusions, pig-boy? Or did you confuse your head with your finger when you did that stupid rock-breaking trick of yours?"

Ryoga whirled on Tarou again. "That s IT!" He grabbed the stunned Tarou by the front of his vest and threw him out the door... towards the Angel. "HEY, you keep it busy until we get back, okay?"

"Are you insane?" Tarou landed, narrowly avoiding another stepping leg. "I m not going to fight this thing."

Ryoga was grinning. No, that wasn t just a grin... that was a genuine smile. A really big, smug smile. "Wanna bet..." He tugged his canteen free from his pack. What, was he thirsty? No, he just took off the lid and started to whirl it... "PANTYHOSE!" On the cry, he flung the canteen out the door... drenching Tarou in the process.

OH. That was what he was doing... COOL.

Rei tugged on Ryoga s headband. "We need to go."

Tarou lunged at the door, reaching a huge, hairy arm inside... no good. The hole was too small and they were already gone. Damn! He was angry. VERY angry. To think that the insignificant pig-boy had mocked him so! Called him by his name in front of girls! Admittedly, young girls, but STILL!

And then the coward had ran away. Pig-boy could have planned it this way... no, no, he s not smart enough. Just coincidence, and luck favoring the less fortunate.

Tarou flexed a wing, then the other, and then extended his tail and tentacles to full length. Oh, well, at least he could still look for Happosai while nobody was around... he felt a tapping at his shoulder. He peeked his grotesque head around, snarling something that would have been quite foul in any human language...

The spider tapped his forehead with one long leg. Then, it lashed out with that leg, impossibly fast for something that size... the blow caught Tarou in the chest, picked him up. The wall behind him didn t stop his flight, but buckled instead. So did several interior walls. The outside wall on the other side only cracked when it stopped him. He considered how much that could have hurt... well, not really badly, come to think of it.

A scream of tortured structural supports filled Tarou s ears as the building s twenty-story height telescoped into fifteen stories. He flung the rubble off of his body in a single sweep of his arms and various other extremities, launching the (quite light) building fragment at the spider-thing... only to see it shatter just before reaching the main body of the horrid thing.

He grunted, several times, and one that was trained in the language of gigantic winged and tentacled minotaur beasts would have interpreted the statement as "That s it", or possibly as "I ve had enough", or even as "I don t care if I don t have a reservation". (Regrettably, not even the most skilled linguist has any training in the language of gigantic winged and tentacled minotaur beasts. Not surprising, since only Tarou himself was one, and he really didn t talk much.) At any rate, whatever had been said must have been in anger, as the much-aggrieved Tarou flung himself at the spider.

Aoba hauled on his section of the line. Around him, a dozen orange-  
suited technicians strained to load the final entry plug into a waiting Evangelion. A final pull... THERE, it was loaded correctly, locking and spinning into a partially-ejected configuration. He broke free from the others and headed towards Gendo, who was using his pocket handkerchief to wipe sweat from his head.

"Um... Hibiki-san..."

Gendo turned his head. "What is it, Aoba-kun?"

"Why are WE the ones doing all the tugging and pulling, and Maya and Ritsuko get to stay there and press all the buttons?"

Gendo looked pensive for a few seconds. "It is simple. This is the easiest way possible for us to reinforce the masculine stereotype in this workplace. By exhibiting our superior physical skills, we show the innate dominance of the male in inter-sexual relations. As an added bonus, by remaining behind they weaken their own protests against the modern status quo. It may- even improve your chances of finding a suitable mate, you know."

"Come again?"

"sigh Simple, Aoba-kun... we re men, and if we want to get away with acting manly all of the time, we have to act manly ALL of the time. Got it?" Gendo rolled his eyes.

"Uh... sure, I guess..." Aoba dismissed the thought from his mind. "Well, all of the Eva are ready for launch... except for the pilots, of course."

Gendo glanced down at his watch... funny, his lips moved when he counted. Five, four, three, two, one...

Asuka was still laughing. At him. "You mean that HE turns into that cool monster thing and all you get is a little pig?"

Ryoga pushed himself along the painfully tight ventilation shaft. He hoped that Rei had meant it when she said that this would drop them right into the command center, because he wasn t going to be able to back up if she had been wrong. "Yeah. NOW do you see why I m pissed at Ranma sometimes?"

"I guess so... Hey! Are you trying to look up my skirt again?"

He questioned... again... why he had agreed to play "tail-end Charlie" in this particular crawl. Rei had been right, they would have had to be able to keep going if he got stuck, but he was getting tired of this. "I wasn t trying the LAST time either..."

"Liar! Pervert! DIE!" Asuka s foot sped toward his head... and bounced off. "OW!"

He chuckled. "Told you."

A grinding sound came from the bottom panel of the shaft... As the mounting screws gave way, and the floor fell out from under him, Ryoga felt his senses sharpen. Only eight feet to the floor, it wasn t any problem, just tuck and land... and Asuka was falling head first, the idiot. He untucked and slid his body under her... they hit the floor together. Okay, no problem, I m fine...

Ritsuko turned at the sound, saw the two pilots. "Finally!"

Okay, I m fine, but I m hallucinating, just like Tarou said... He saw two feet approaching... closer... closer... wait. He was looking straight up, that meant that the feet were... OW.

Rei folded her arms back to her sides after a perfect three-point landing. "We saw the Angel..."

"Er... Rei..." His voice was distorted, coming as it was through layers of rubber and foot. "Could you get off my face, please?"

She looked down... he looked up... shut his eyes. Damn it, why did they ALWAYS have to wear skirts? Pants were nice. They weren t restrictive. They didn t get you embarrassed when somebody happened to be directly... "Okay." She hopped off.

Ritsuko chuckled at the exchange, and helped a furious Asuka up off of Ryoga.

"Pervert! See? I told you, Rei, he s a pervert!"

"Asuka, now, come on, let s just get you to the entry plug so you can go stop the Angel..." Maya grabbed Asuka by the shoulders and steered her away.

Rei blinked. Three times.

Asuka crawled her Eva along the huge access tunnel... sure, it wasn t very dignified, crawling like this, but at least their resident peeping Tom wouldn t be excited by the sight of auxiliary battery packs. The nerve of that guy! She resolved to hit him with one of those hammers as soon as she had the chance.

Rei s face popped up in a comm panel. \"There s a vertical shaft up ahead."/

"Got it. We only have a couple of minutes of power, remember?" Asuka reached the end of the tunnel, and used her Eva s leg to smash the blast door open. Once again, she reveled in the power that she commanded with her Eva, and the fact that her foot didn t hurt any more. She started up the shaft, followed by Ryoga in 01 and Rei in 00.

She looked up... the shaft was open to the sky. That in and of itself was wrong, they should have had to tear it open themselves... A brown blur flew over the hole, followed by a pair of legs. The Angel must be right on top of them...

Tarou heaved his bulk out of the way of another leg attack. This thing was kind of depressing, in the intelligence department. It was insultingly easy to read its moves. Of course, since he couldn t seem to get anything through that field, it really didn t matter much... but it was enough to keep him alive.

He heard another bass rumble... two sets. Six sets. From the pattern, it was something below him, coming up... He decided to take another view of the battlefield, and launched himself into the air. His wings, even though they looked woefully inadequate to hold his huge cursed form in the air, were enough to keep him aloft.

A red arm shot out of the hole that the spider had opened in that really deep shaft (which he had not quite managed to trick it into falling in, exactly...) and was followed by the remainder of a robot. A HUGE robot. Bigger than him. WAY bigger. Ten, twelve stories, at least. It leapt free of the hole and spider both, only to let a purple one through. That one was followed by a blue one...

They all looked like twisted, emaciated parodies of the human form. Kind of nice, in a stylized way, but the color patterns were just horrid. The red one grabbed some kind of cannon off of its back and fired it at the monster... no, now all three were. It whined and screamed as the bullets tore into its body and WHERE was that field thing that pig-boy had been going on about? He briefly reflected on the relative fairness before dismissing it as pointless.

The robots kneeled, and something popped out of the necks of all three... and three people climbed out, one from each robot. One very familiar person...

Misato barely noticed as the power came back on. Kaji, however, HE couldn t get away fast enough once the door opened. She couldn t help but think that he was trying to get away from her. Well, serves him right if he felt bad. It would be the first time, she thought.

Ah, well. At least the air was fresh. And cool! Air conditioning was really the best thing about civilization, she thought. And they d stopped the Angel, of course. Always a good thing, that.

Kaji hung from a tree, taking pictures. He HAD to know the truth. The conversations he had had in the past couple of hours were disconcerting, to say the least. He wasn t going home until he had something for Misato, though. He d promised himself.

"Honestly, Ranma. Why are you so grumpy?" Akane glared at her fianc . The idiot.

"I dunno, Akane... could it be because you threw a glass of water on me, for no reason, and now I can t change back because the infallible Nabiki decided that electric heaters and ranges were more cost-  
efficient than gas, and there s no matches in the house, and I CAN T change back?" Ranma flounced as she crossed her arms in front of her.

"What do you mean, for no reason? You called me uncute, AGAIN."

"Did not... you were just hearing things, AGAIN."

Ryoga leaned back against the grass, on a small hill overlooking the city center. Night had just fallen, and he was tired, and he wanted to go home and sleep, or better yet just sleep right now... but as soon as the power came back on, he was supposed to go and move 01 back into the hangar. It made sense, so he stayed and waited.

Asuka chuckled. She was still angry about earlier, he guessed. He felt his head, but couldn t find a bruise from the hammer.

"It s so empty out here, without any lights." She sighed and leaned back herself.

"Yeah, but look up... stars. It s great, isn t it, how you can see so many stars without the lights." Ryoga loved looking at the stars. What did he need paintings or television for, when life put on a light show for free, every night?

"The city looks like there s nobody living there, though." At that moment, the lights started coming on, flaring into existence and blotting out the night.

"Mankind has always feared the darkness, so he scrapes away at its edges with fire." The other two turned to look at Rei.

Asuka laughed lightly. "A philosopher."

"I like that philosophy." Wait a minute... that had been a guy. Ryoga turned, saw the shine of a vest and bracers before he made out Tarou s face. "What was that thing, pig-boy?"

"Oh, hi, Tarou. It s an Angel."

"So... the old man wasn t cracked after all..." Tarou sat down next to him.

"Um... sorry about the crack about your name earlier."

"Oh?" Tarou smiled. "And about leaving me to deal with that... Angel?"

"No, that was necessary." Ryoga closed his eyes and relaxed. Tarou wasn t mad, just his normal, insulting self.

"Well, I don t appreciate being used, pig-boy."

Asuka grinned at Tarou. "Tell you what. You want to come have dinner? It s the least we can do, after he nearly got you killed and all."

Tarou arched an eyebrow. "Who said I nearly got killed? I d have had the thing in another five minutes, you know."

"Sure, whatever, Tarou."

Tarou ignored Ryoga and went on. "But, indeed, it is the LEAST you can do. Sure, I m hungry anyway." A cloud passed over Tarou s features. "You don t plan on feeding me the cooking of that girl, do you?"

Ryoga laughed, startling the other two. "Don t worry, Pantyhose, I guarantee you that the cooking will be better than Akane s." Just not by how much.

Tarou reached over and rapped a foreknuckle off of Ryoga s head, not serious. "I told you to stop calling me that."

The four got up, and walked toward the town... nobody noticed the gleam in Asuka s eyes as she looked at the back of Tarou s vest. After all, dragon scale could reflect the light in such interesting ways...

End of part 13

As usual, questions and comments go to akent

Of course, if you ve read THIS far, I don t expect any flames, but feel free if you like... 


	14. Chapter 14

Misato hummed to herself as she eased the microwave containers onto the table. She d only been home for a few minutes, and Rei, Asuka, and Ryoga should make it in any time now. Funny, how after such a long day they d all insisted that walking home would be better than driving with her. She almost suspected that they were saying something about her driving skills.

Oh, well, it wasn t important, especially after a long day. Finally, the technicians had everybody s power working again, and life could return to normal. Or at least until the NEXT Angel showed up. Misato ran a hand across her forehead. It had been very embarrassing to find out that she d missed an entire Angel attack because she was stuck in an elevator with Kaji. And the looks she had received from Ritsuko! It would have been bad enough if something had happened, not that something could have happened, of course... but Misato was COMPLETELY innocent.

She fished half a dozen beers out of the fridge, placing one at Ryoga s place, one at Asuka s, and the other four at her own. Another minute found a clean glass filled with ice water sitting in front of Rei s noodle mix. After placing out a bit of silverware, everything would be ready...

She heard a thumping sound coming down the hallway, as if somebody were in quite a hurry to get inside... hm. That instant curry did smell good. She couldn t blame them.

The door opened, and Ryoga tossed his pack in the corner of the entry as he stripped off his shoes. He was talking to somebody...

"Hey, Ryoga, come on in, dinner s ready!"

He ducked into the kitchen. "Sure, in a second. Um..." He scratched at the back of his head. "I brought a friend home. You mind?"

She shot Ryoga a flat look. "No, although it would have been nice for you to tell me before I left. I ll just pop in another one." She snatched a frozen dinner from her freezer and shoveled it into the microwave.

From next door, or what would have been next door if Ryoga hadn t opened a door of his own, she could hear Rei and Asuka coming in. Well, she could hear Asuka and somebody who wasn t talking much... same difference.

And somebody else was in the entry, now. He followed Ryoga into the kitchen. Looked like a nice sort, in a rough way. VERY nice vest. Earrings, little, and in both ears. Loops, not studs. His hair looked like somebody had just tousled it, though. Overall, he was just a shade too pretty to be considered handsome.

And he had a pair of hose wrapped around his waist. "Young man, do you ALWAYS use women s undergarments as a fashion accessory?"

Paradise Lost, part 14 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax, respectively -  
He smiled, and there was no warmth in that smile. It was a smile that reminded you that smiling was really just an old reflex that bared the teeth... She would have called it an evil smile if Gendo had smiled it. "Well, since you ask so nicely, oh great and honored host, yes. And I have my reasons." He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

"Be nice, Tarou. This is Misato Katsuragi. Misato, Tarou."

She waited... "Tarou what?"

"Tarou will suffice."

"Whatever. Hey, Ryoga, how does Tarou rate a visit home?"

Asuka walked into the kitchen and slid into her seat at the table. "Oh, joy... instant again."

Ryoga dropped into the seat next to her. "What, did you really expect anything else?"

"Well, she could have ordered out for pizza, at least." Asuka grimly picked up her fork and started in on her meal.

Misato looked up from the microwave door as Rei came in. She sat down and looked at her noodles with something less than enthusiasm. Of course, that was perfectly normal for Rei. She sipped at her water and looked at Ryoga.

The timer went off, and Misato grabbed the cup of noodles out of the microwave. "Well, here you go, Tarou... um..." Hmm... she hadn t thought of this problem when she had moved in. "We re all out of chairs. Mind noshing?"

"I have no idea what "noshing" means, but the counter s perfectly fine."

"Well, sure." She slid the noodles down towards Tarou and opened the fridge. "Beer?"

Tarou looked at the table. "Since when do you drink beer, porker?"

Ryoga snorted. "You learn fast around here, I suppose."

"And Asuka? Aren t you a bit young for that sort of thing?"

"She s GERMAN, Tarou."

"Ah... explains everything."

Misato lobbed the beer at Tarou, who plucked it out of the air with one hand, without looking up from the table. "Well, drink up."

Tarou started, looked at the can in his hand, shook his head. "No, I don t think so."

"Come on, don t be shy..." Asuka popped the tab on hers and took a gulp. "Besides, you ll need it to wash down her cooking."

"Should I consider that fair warning? I don t need alcohol." He flipped the can back to Misato.

Didn t need alcohol? What a prude. "Whatever." She grabbed a Coke from the fridge and passed it to him. At least SOMEBODY would drink the stuff. It took up room in the fridge that could otherwise house beer.

Rei finished her water and set the glass down. She hadn t touched her noodles... "Hey, come on, Rei, eat up. There s no meat in it..."

"I..." Rei looked up at her, blinked once. "I had noodles for lunch."

"Are you saying something about the quality of my noodles?"

"Um... yes."

Tarou expertly rolled noodles over his fork and popped it into his mouth. A cloud passed over his features, and he set it back down. "Do..." He erupted into a violent fit of coughing. "You wouldn t happen to know a young girl named Akane Tendo, would you?"

"I can t believe this! I have to put up with this day in, day out from Ryoga... and now all of you? If you people can t quit insulting my cooking, maybe I ll just leave you to your own for dinner!" Misato thought about stomping her foot, decided that it would be unnecessary.

Asuka s face lit up. "Really? You re sure? All right!"

Tarou turned to look at Ryoga. "You haven t said anything."

"Think about it. It s not nearly as bad as Akane s cooking, and I can eat that..." Ryoga bolted the remainder of his dinner. "So this stuff s not so bad after all."

"Well, never let it be said that I was out-toughed by the pig-boy..." Tarou picked his fork back up and attacked his noodles with a vengeance.

Misato rolled her eyes. Well, at least they were eating... "You d have problems out-toughing Ryoga, Tarou. He even kills Angels."

"No kidding." Tarou took a long gulp of his soda. "Just what the hell was that thing? And why couldn t I hit it? Some kind of field thing kept getting in the way."

"AT field." Ryoga snickered.

"Yeah, right, you told me that."

Misato finished her beer and opened another one. "Exactly why were you trying to hit the Angel, Tarou? Something personal? I can understand that." She fingered her cross-shaped pendant.

"Not really, it just kept trying to step on me. What ELSE was I going to do?"

"Let me get this straight. The Angel was trying to kill YOU? Specifically? And you re still here?" She shook her head. "Not likely. Tell me another one."

Tarou chuckled. "Maybe I m not so far behind in the toughness competition, after all. Which reminds me..." He turned towards Ryoga. "The next time you get what you think is a bright idea, pig-boy, mind running it by me first?"

"Worked, didn t it?"

"Wait a minute. WHAT worked?" Misato cursed the time she d lost in that elevator... nothing was making any sense here.

Rei spoke up. "Ryoga threw his canteen at Tarou and turned him into a big... furry... I m not sure what they re called."

Tarou spoke with the tone of somebody who was repeating something for the umpteenth time. "Yeti-riding-bull-holding-crane-and-eel. With tentacles."

Okay, no way, she wasn t falling for this one. "Ryoga, I can t believe you d use Rei like that, trying for a joke. It s not funny, you know."

"Um... Misato... it s true." She turned to see Asuka smiling and pointing her fork at Tarou. "When he got wet, he became this really big winged monster."

"Oh, and I suppose he held off the Angel by himself?"

"I m not sure... we went to go get Eva." Ryoga drained his beer.

Tarou snorted. "You mean you took off down the tunnel where I couldn t follow, to save your own neck while I had to put up with that reject from a lousy monster movie."

"Well, that too."

"Whoa! Hold on for a minute. Tarou, exactly HOW do you turn into... whatever you turn into?"

He turned and smiled. He had the most EVIL smile. "I would think that living with Ryoga for a while would have educated you about the finer points of the Jusenkyo curse."

"Huh? Curse? What curse?" She trailed off, listened... thought for a second... "Ryoga... do you have something that you want to tell me?"

She hadn t turned toward him, but she heard a strangled squeak. "Um, no."

Tarou tossed his soda can in the air, caught it again. "That s okay, pig-boy, we can always just show her." Rei started chuckling.

"Um... er... uh... oh hell. I..." Ryoga continued in a very small voice. "I turn into a little black pig when I get hit with cold water."

"Wait a minute. Would SOMEBODY mind explaining what the HELL you re all talking about?" She pointed at Tarou. "Here, you start. What s this about curses?"

"Certainly." Tarou crossed his arms, the shining bracers throwing an interesting reflection pattern on the ceiling. "There s a little valley in China called Jusenkyo. It s full of tiny springs, and they re all magical. You fall in one, you get cursed. All the curses are different."

"Then..." She looked at Ryoga. "You fell in the spring of little black pigs?"

"Actually..." He coughed once. "It s the spring of drowned black pig, but yes."

"Okay, thank you, may I continue? Ahem. The curse changes your physical form, but not your mind. Cold water activates it, and hot water negates it. Did you follow that?"

Misato nodded. "I think so... Exactly when were you going to tell me this, Ryoga?"

Tarou answered for him. "Given what I know of pig-boy, that would be shortly after Hell sets up a snow-cone concession. He s rather shy about it, for some reason or another."

Asuka looked up. "Well, it s not like YOU have to turn into a little pig."

"No, I just turn into a walking abomination that frightens young children. It doesn t matter; I ve done this my whole life. Not MY fault if not everybody can adjust."

Misato was still reeling a little bit. "WHY would you fall in a magic spring anyway, Ryoga?"

"I was pushed." He shot Tarou a dirty look. "And would you lay off? After all, if we re laying out dirty laundry here, I ve got an article of clothing in mind."

Misato nudged Rei. "He really turns into a pig?"

"Yes." Rei blinked. "I told him that he should tell you, in case you needed to know, but he told me not to tell anybody."

Tarou ignored the two. "Look, if it wasn t for that old lecher, I wouldn t have my problem!"

"And if it wasn t for..."

Misato s head snapped back up. "Would you two KNOCK IT OFF?! Tarou, you have a problem with Ryoga turning into a pig? Ryoga, what the hell are YOU talking about?" She opened another beer. "And if you tell me that Asuka turns into something, I ll smack you."

Asuka pulled a small hammer from behind her chair. "That s not even funny, Misato."

"NO, I don t have a problem with him turning into a pig! I just have a problem with him WHINING about it!"

"That s enough!" Ryoga leapt to his feet.

"Oh, you want to start something, pig-boy? I m game." Tarou s fists curled, oddly.

"At least I m not the one with the underwear fetish, PANTYHOSE." Ryoga sneered the last word, which seemed to drive Tarou into a rage.

"You bastard!" Tarou dived across the table... only to be met by Asuka s mallet. He swatted it aside, contemptuously...

click

And pulled up, his nose two inches from the end of Rei s gun. His eyes crossed as the focused on the barrel. "Look, girl, if you don t put that away, I ll take it from you."

Misato jumped up, hard enough to send her chair flying across the room. "THAT S IT!" She reached over, grabbed the back of Tarou s vest, and pulled him off the table. Over her shoulder, she barked, "Rei! Put that thing away! Didn t we talk to you about that kind of thing?"

Rei shrugged and replaced the gun in its holster. She could have been smiling, although it was much more likely just a muscle spasm. Even for Rei, that wasn t much of a smile.

Misato turned, stared right at Tarou. "And exactly WHY did you decide to wait to get in a fight with MY best Eva pilot," ignoring the "HEY!" from Asuka... "in MY apartment, after eating MY dinner..." She paused to take a breath. "Without answering MY question?"

Tarou stared right back. "You heard him! He called me... PANTYHOSE." He averted his eyes on the last word.

Misato shrugged. "Well, I ll admit, it s not the most creative insult I ve ever heard, but that s no reason to fly off the handle."

"You don t understand..." Tarou slumped against the wall.

Ryoga smiled, tight-lipped. "Well? If you don t tell her, I can."

Asuka looked at Rei. "Didn t we just see this?"

"Um, no..." Rei blinked, once.

"It s..." Tarou s shoulders shook. "It s my given NAME, damn it!"

Misato let go of his vest. "You re joking."

"Not about that." Tarou s eyes were squeezed shut. "Ryoga has his curse, and I have mine. There it is. Happy?"

"Um... yeah..." Misato could feel herself smiling despite herself. "It s really Pantyhose?"

"Pantyhose Tarou. Now could we just drop it?"

She started laughing. "Wait a minute... why the HELL are you..."

He lunged forward, grabbing her by the lapels of her jacket. Hey! "It s because of that idiot pervert Happosai, that s why! It s his fault!"

His reaction stopped her laughter. "And what are you about to do?" Tarou started, looked up, glanced down momentarily, and hurriedly released her jacket. "Better. I m sorry I laughed."

"Happosai? Isn t that the old man?"

Tarou turned away from Misato, looked at Asuka. "You ve seen him? About two feet tall, almost bald, white hair, wrinkles, ugly as sin?"

"Little ninja outfit? Yeah, he was at the dojo."

"Figures. Well, Ryoga, at least you re better off than fem-boy." Tarou chuckled.

"Am not." Ryoga started laughing, too.

"Fem-boy? You guys are starting to scare me." Misato picked her chair back up and sat down. "Who s fem-boy?"

"Heh. He fell in the spring of drowned girl."

How horrible! "Look, could everybody just calm down?" Misato looked at her watch. "It s two in the morning, for goodness sake. I m going to get some sleep... then, in the morning, YOU, Tarou, are going to NERV with me."

She briefly wondered if he ever got tired of chuckling like that. "I do assume that you have a good reason for asking me so nicely."

"Simple, Tarou. You fought an Angel today, and you re not dead. That means we can learn something about it, and maybe we don t all die the next time. Okay?" She had another few reasons, but kept those to herself.

"I suppose it couldn t hurt." He unfolded his arms, stuck out a hand. "I ll borrow the couch for tonight, then." She took his hand, shook it. It had calluses in unusual places along the fingers. "Well, this has been amusing, but she has a good point. It s late, and I personally don t see any reason to stay awake any longer. Good night." He walked over to Rei.

"Good night, Pantyhose." Rei stood up... to find Tarou standing directly in front of her, fists cocked.

"What, do you find my name amusing, little girl?"

She stared at him. "No... it s a name. A verbal designation for a human. Why WOULD it be funny?" She blinked once.

He took a step back, and the tension in his shoulders melted away. "Now that is a refreshing outlook on life. I ll forgive you, this time." He left the room.

Ryoga turned over and threw his pillow against the headboard. Huh. Normally, he didn t have problems sleeping. Of course, normally he didn t have to face his curse being exposed in front of everybody. Well, Misato anyway... and she would have found out sooner or later, he supposed...

Well, sitting here and sulking wasn t going to make him fall asleep. Especially when he couldn t hear Tarou s snoring for the rumbling in his belly. Late night snack? Ah, why not... He pulled on a shirt and pants and headed for the door.

And found the bathroom. Oh, boy... this could get VERY embarrassing if his luck wasn t in. Was his luck EVER in, when it came to finding things? Probably not, he recalled.

*[Hey, kid.]*

Ryoga chuckled. Yeah?

*[Looking for the kitchen?]*

Yeah. So? Ryoga thought that the voice in his head was being unusually dim tonight.

*[Turn right... okay, now go straight. Keep going... stop. Turn left. A couple of steps... there ya go.]*

Ryoga followed the directions and looked at the kitchen counter. Hey! THAT was a darned useful insanity. He quickly thought a "thanks" before opening the pantry. He rummaged around, managed to find a box of chocolate bars in the back. That should be just fine.

Turning back around, he saw Penpen standing on the floor next to him. The penguin opened its mouth, let forth a single "wark", and waddled to its own fridge.

"You know, you re making quite a racket." Tarou leaned against the doorframe. "If I d been sleeping, it would have been messy."

Ryoga snorted. "You normally snore like that when you don t sleep?"

"Fool. I don t snore even when I DO sleep." Tarou glanced down at Ryoga s arms. "What s in the box, pig-boy?"

Ryoga sat down at the kitchen table, motioned for Tarou to do likewise. "Chocolate. I figured that I d need some edible food after dinner."

Tarou flopped into the chair opposite Ryoga. "I don t see how somebody that can t cook INSTANT food can be in charge around here. How hard can it be?"

"Yeah... normally I do most of the cooking."

"What, when you re not off riding around in that metal skeleton, pig-  
boy?"

Ryoga frowned. Enough was enough. "Would you knock it off with the wisecracks about my curse, huh?"

"Why? You re so funny when you re annoyed." Tarou grinned and made motions with his eyebrows.

"Hm... you re right, PANTYHOSE." Two could play at that game.

"HEY, none of that now. It s completely different." Tarou motioned at the box. "Share the wealth, pi... boy."

Well, give him credit for trying. "Of course it s different. You beat up Happosai, and you re in the clear. I m stuck like this."

Tarou snorted. "Hop in the spring of drowned man, and your curse is gone, not that I d want that myself. At least your solution works the first time."

Ryoga flipped a bar to Tarou. "Maybe it s not so different."

"You mean aside from the good looks, sense of direction, and lack of attachments to Ranma s fianc e?"

"Scratch that last part." Ryoga ripped open one of the bars and bit in. Hm... tasty. "I m over her."

"Really?" Tarou raised an eyebrow. "I figured you as the persistent type."

"It s complicated... but safer this way, really. And I would very much appreciate you NOT mentioning my curse in front of her, okay? That wasn t part of the deal."

"Hm... do they HAVE to use two wrappers on these?" Tarou freed his chocolate bar and took an experimental bite. "Hey, this isn t bad. To be honest... boy... I don t really care one way or the other. But we can deal. I don t go spreading around that you re somebody s precious P-  
chan... and YOU don t give my full name out to everybody who asks for an introduction. Got it?"

Ryoga could live with that. "Fine. I don t see why you told us in the first place, though."

"I believe that had more than a little to do with a certain soon-to-be-  
deceased lecher of our mutual acquaintance. Also, I need some way to stop your little fan club from letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak."

"My fan club? Oh." He had to be talking about Rei and Asuka. "Rei s no problem. She really doesn t tend to volunteer information anyway."

"She s the albino, right? I still can t believe that she didn t think my name was funny." Tarou frowned. "Of course, I still don t want her calling me that."

"Try asking. She didn t tell anybody about my curse, and she had a good reason to do it. Asuka, you can use physical intimidation on her." Ryoga polished off his chocolate and grabbed another.

Tarou smiled. "Ah, I believe I can handle that one. What about the lush?"

"Misato s no problem. Just tell her very nicely that you d much rather be called plain old Tarou, and then break something by accident." It might even work. "Think you can handle that?"

"Probably." Tarou took another bite of chocolate. "So, what the hell is going on, anyway? I mean, if I had to pick three people to pilot big robots, I m perfectly sure you wouldn t be one of them."

"Well, thanks a lot. I don t know, really. Asuka said something about you having to be fourteen years old to pilot one, and that s why they use her and Rei."

"You re NOT fourteen, so that s out the window."

"I d noticed." Come to think of it, why HAD he been picked? "Probably because of Dad, then. He runs the whole thing. Misato s boss."

"That explains a few things. Well, what do they want with ME, then?" Tarou flexed an arm and yawned.

"I guess they want to find out why you re not dead. Most of the guys at NERV don t get out much. I let off one little ki blast and they get all bent out of shape." Well, two or three, but still!

"Wimp. Real men fight with their fists. What, that was almost two weeks ago?" Tarou coughed.

"Yeah."

"Thought it might have been you. I d never seen the sun dawn at midnight, especially in the south, and it s not GREEN most of the time either. Must have been a whopper."

"I dunno, maybe the Eva made it bigger? It worked."

"Yeah, what s with you calling it "Eva", anyway? Couldn t come up with a cool acronym?"

"They don t tell me this stuff." Ryoga wadded the wrappers into a small ball and stuffed them into the garbage can. "I just get in and move it around. NOT pleasant, let me tell you."

"Eh? What, is the widdle pilot afraid of getting bounced around in his widdle Eva?"

"Shut up. You don t have any idea. It feels just like the Eva is YOU. Ever had your arm broken in half?" Ryoga reflexively twitched the muscles in his left arm. "I d almost forgotten what it felt like, that kind of pain."

"And you get in there anyway."

"Well... everybody says that if we screw up, it s the end of the world."

Tarou nodded. "Whatever... how do they keep you around? I d think that you wander off pretty easily."

"You d be right. They stick me in a classroom and bore me for eight hours a day. Let me tell you, it stinks." Ryoga yawned. Maybe eating something had done the trick; he felt more sleepy already. "Speaking of that, I m going to get some sleep. See you in the morning."

Tarou pushed his chair back and grabbed Ryoga s collar. "Here, I think you could use a hand finding your bed. After all, nobody s going to get any sleep if you stumble into the wrong room by accident."

"Hey, thanks." Well, maybe. "Could you not hold it so urk tight?"

"Ahh!" Misato inhaled deeply. "That s the way to wake up in the morning." After another gulp of beer, she turned to look at breakfast. Eggs, again. "Hey, Ryoga, exactly what do you have against having ham for breakfast?"

"It creeps me out." Ryoga opened his mouth and bolted an entire fried egg. Speaking around the food, he mumbled, "It feels like cannibalism, you know."

Tarou looked at Ryoga, back at Misato, rolled his eyes, and then started eating his own breakfast. "Whatever."

"Well, eat up. We need to leave for NERV fairly soon." Misato pitched her voice higher. "Hey, Asuka!" She heard a muffled grunt from the next apartment. "You re on watch today, so no class. Come on or you ll miss the ride!"

Tarou swallowed, nodded approvingly, and then frowned. "Misato, could you remind me exactly WHY I m going with you today? I d just as soon finish my business here and never see this city again."

Well, THAT wasn t a very positive attitude. She decided to take the humorous approach. "Well, Tarou-kun, since nobody s ever actually walked up and touched one of the Angels before, we need to know if your head is going to explode or not, and if so, how long you ve got." Misato didn t quite manage to keep the smile off of her face.

Tarou choked for a second, then glared at Ryoga. "If my head explodes because of this, I m going to be very upset with you." She started laughing... so did Tarou, and Ryoga wasn t very far behind. "I understand the point, though. I trust that I ll be compensated for my time?"

"Yeah, yeah, I invited you into my HOME, didn t I?" Misato waved a hand in a dismissing gesture. "Probably it ll just be some paperwork and a free medical checkup." At the word "paperwork", Tarou paled slightly.

Asuka walked in and took the fourth seat at the table. "My day today? Great. I can t STAND listening to the same boring Second Impact lecture day after day. I almost feel sorry for you, Ryoga."

"Lecture? School? RYOGA?" Tarou tilted back in his chair from the force of his laughter, teetered on the edge for a second, and returned it to the floor. "Didn t expect THAT."

"Tell me about it. It s enough to drive you crazy." Ryoga stood up and pushed his chair in. Picking up his dishes and dumping them in the sink, he said, "Well, if I m not wrong, I ought to be going. You know, it s nice to be on time for something for once in my life. I ll just grab Rei and we ll get going."

Tarou snickered. "Careful on your placement, pig-boy." Ryoga s ears colored pink as he turned to leave the room. Asuka chuckled, and Misato couldn t help but follow suit.

Ah, today felt like a good day, already.

Tarou stepped out of the car. He turned, glared at Misato, and said, "I am NEVER getting in one of those hellish devices again. It amazes me that you haven t managed to kill yourself by now, and I d try to stop you if I actually worried about any of the other poor saps in this city that might have to share a ROAD with you."

Asuka looked up. "Isn t that a bit harsh? After all, she was on the left side of the road the whole time!"

By the tone of Asuka s statement, or what tone he could read past her German accent, anyway, that meant that usually Misato didn t manage to keep her car on the correct side of the road. "Look, even I can figure out what you re supposed to do when you see a sign that says "STOP" on it."

Misato stepped out of the car and reached into the back seat, producing a long, wrapped package. "Well, then, Tarou, I suggest that you DO so!"

The three crowded into an elevator and descended into NERV. Tarou shot a quizzical glance at Misato, grunted "where" when that had no effect, and finally gave up and said, "Where are we going now?" Some people just couldn t read body language.

"I m going to run you past Ritsuko once on the way in. We ll ask you some questions, take a few readings, a blood sample, that sort of thing." Misato shrugged. "A bit routine. I hope you don t get bored."

"Blood sample? What for?"

"I m not the doctor! I imagine that it gets analyzed so they can get your blood typing and such."

Tarou grunted. "I want the sample back when they re done with it." No sense in taking chances, after all.

Misato turned to Asuka. "We don t really have anything on the agenda for you, Asuka, so find someplace and light for a few hours, okay?"

"I think I ll watch you guys." Asuka grinned maliciously. "Should be more interesting than just watching old movies, after all."

THAT wasn t exactly what he suspected. Tarou had noted certain things in Asuka s posture, her eye movements, and such, and had halfway expected her to find some excuse to remain with him. He allowed himself a moment of vanity before addressing the manner of her request.

And that was just it. She hadn t made the expected self-depreciating request to follow along, nor any kind of apologetic crap about not wanting to be a bother. A simple statement of intent, that s what it had been. Nice, to the point, and from the tone Asuka didn t doubt that she would do exactly that.

It was something HE might have done. He didn t notice himself falling into an uncharacteristic smile. He did notice that he liked Asuka s style.

Misato left the two in Ritsuko s office, after obtaining a promise that Tarou would be handled from there, and an additional one concerning any samples they happened to draw. Paranoid mystical nonsense, Ritsuko had argued. Of course, once Tarou started cracking his knuckles and stretching, Ritsuko had admitted that a little consideration for Tarou s odd belief system was in order.

After the short trip back to her own office, she plopped down in her chair and began to assault the piles of paperwork that, for one reason or another, demanded the attention of the Operations Commander of NERV.

Six hours later, she yawned and leaned back. The mountain of official reports had become a neatly stacked molehill in her out box. Sure, it wasn t the most productive day in the world, but it did serve to break up the Angel attacks, she mused. Besides, it was restful work.

A knock sounded on her door. "Come on in," she said. The company would be nice, something to interrupt the monotony before she finished the last of her tasks for the day.

The door opened, and Kaji walked in. Walked, NOT sauntered. Misato immediately closed the file she had been leafing through and gestured for him to close the door. One look on his face told her that he had something important... he wasn t smiling, not even a little. And he hadn t combed his hair, either. She knew exactly how much effort Kaji invested in maintaining his image of a rough fellow, and it was obvious that he hadn t been investing that effort lately.

He raised one arm, in which he had tucked a manila envelope. With a toss, he flung it to an open spot at the center of her desk, and then sank to one of other chairs she kept in the office.

"What is it, Kaji? You find some results on that girl?"

"Read." He wouldn t look up at her. That was bad, she couldn t ever remember him not being able to look up and crack a joke with her.

She opened the envelope and withdrew a small sheaf of papers. It was a dossier on somebody. The particular somebody was plainly obvious, considering that Kaji had thoughtfully attached a rather nice photograph of a girl with red hair in a bobbed ponytail. She seemed to be a pleasant sort... the picture had been cropped too much to make anything of the background, though. Some kind of wooden panels, and grass...

She removed the photograph and skimmed down the initial report. It seemed that he d actually begun to search a few days before she herself had asked... at Ritsuko s request. Makes sense, Misato thought, since Ritsuko HAD taken a nasty hit that night. She flipped through a few observation logs and the like (mostly centered around a place identified as the Tendo Dojo), and came to the actual meat of the report.

She let her eyes rove over the report, looking for anything inconsistent with the rest... height, weight, and probable measurements were all right. Daily activities... probable motivations... she saw the name Ranma flash by, recalled Ryoga s admission that she had indeed been Ranma, continued on. And then returned to the name.

She lowered the papers to her desk, unaware of her shaking hands. "Kaji, I want you to leave NOW. The only reason that I don t kill you where you stand... hell, I can t particularly think of a good one, but I won t kill you anyway. You KNEW that this is beyond the pale."

Kaji swallowed and did not look up. "I didn t believe it. I checked with every source I could find. Double-checked. If somebody is snowing me, we re screwed to begin with; this kind of misinformation, from so many sources, would take HUGE resources to spread. Especially on an off-chance hunt like this one. And as to the other... you know me better than that. I wouldn t have handed you that if I didn t believe what was on it. I almost didn t anyway, but you have a right to know."

Misato blinked, looked back down at the paper, at the characters for "Saotome" in the name of the young girl. "It has to be a coincidence. It HAS to be."

Kaji shook his head and glanced up, eyes dark with worry. "Age, blood type, appearance, they all match up. And it s beyond a doubt that the girl s father is named Genma Saotome, and that she is his only child." He bowed his head. "I don t understand it either."

"My son. That s... my son in the picture?" Misato grabbed the photo and raised it, taking in the features. "That... that bastard Genma, he took my son and raised him... to be THIS? A cross-dressing pervert?" The edges of her vision went blurry, and she didn t identify the source as her tears until they started to dampen the rest of the papers on her desk. "It can t be true. Look at her! It CAN T be true!"

Kaji winced, reached into his jacket. "No, it isn t true." He removed another packet, much smaller, from inside the jacket and handed it to her. "That s not cross-dressing."

She felt her eyes go wide at the implications, tore the packet in two in her haste to open it. Inside were photographs... very... explicit... photographs...

Kaji continued. "Those came from multiple sources, multiple cameras, multiple times. I don t think that they were faked. Under the circumstances, I just thank God that she was alone in them."

"Alone? ALONE?! How can you even SAY that? My son... he s posing in women s underwear! AND THEY FIT! He s... he s..." Misato dropped the photos and buried her head in her hands.

"He s... a she, Misato. As nearly as I could tell, you have a healthy teenage daughter." Kaji reached across the desk to her... and she knocked his hand away. Lurching to her feet, she took two steps back from the desk, her hand reaching for the object she knew was in that corner. "It s NOT the end, damn it!"

Misato grabbed the object, clutching it in both hands as if it could drive off the disaster that had just happened. "I... I made a vow, Kaji. WE made a vow. And now... I thought that maybe he was dead, that the Impact had taken him and his father like it took mine... but, I can t face this. WE MADE A VOW!" She saw him flinch from the force of her shouting.

She had buried her son. Not his physical body, of course, but any thoughts that she had of him were of the type you reserved for dead relatives. It had been necessary; her worthless, good-for-nothing ex-husband had done everything in his power to make her life a living hell, in the few short years they had been married, and she couldn't bear to recall them both,  
couldn't manage to forget the father and remember the son.

Blinking back her tears, she steeled herself. "You know what I have to do, Kaji." He shook his head, opened his mouth to protest, but she kept speaking. "You KNOW!" She glanced down at the moist paper, the one with the name of her son and the image of her daughter, and read a single line. "If I m not back by tonight, tell Ryoga." She tore the door to her office open and slammed it behind her, leaving a stunned Kaji inside. She broke into a run as she headed for the elevator, her emotions a whirl, but her purpose clear... she would fulfill her vow.

Asuka sat down at the corner of the waiting room and watched Tarou out of the corner of her eye. He couldn t seem to keep still, pacing up and down and glaring at anything that moved. He couldn t be nervous about all those tests, could he? Nah. Tarou wasn t the nervous type, she thought.

The more she saw, the more she liked. He was in top physical form, didn t have any problems with moving through the pilot s obstacle course. Faster than the proverbial bat out of hell, actually. He asked intelligent questions and seemed to know when Ritsuko was being evasive or outright lying. The looks were nice, an intriguing mix of hard lines and an almost feminine grace. He had confidence, was aware of his limits.

And he had the cutest vulnerability... Asuka couldn t see why he didn t just change his name, especially as he couldn t recall any family to contradict him. She d even asked him, obliquely, and he d said something about honor and doing things the proper way, then snorted and said that it d be more fun just to beat a new one out of Happosai anyway.

In a word, NICE. She considered several other complimentary adjectives, but decided that nice pretty much summed it up. She considered his lack of comment as a good sign, since she recognized that she must have been showing SOME signs, and she dearly hoped that he was observant enough to pick them up.

Kaji had been fun, especially back in Germany where they d been almost isolated from their native culture. He was smart, witty, and more than willing to play along... but now, even a moron like Ryoga should have seen how he felt about Misato, and that was real.

She couldn t even begrudge him. After all, for all her effort, she was STILL fairly young. And he d had something going with Misato before, it was obvious. It did leave her in the lurch, though.

Yes, Tarou was handsome, he was buff, he was bright, and most of all, he was convenient. At least today. She grinned to herself and watched him stalk back and forth. Just like the typical man, he was afraid of the doctor s office as well.

Tarou sat down at the couch across from her and grimaced. "Do YOU know why it s taking them so long?" He waved a hand at the door. "I shouldn t have agreed to this."

"Well, have you considered that there s a lot of other, IMPORTANT things that go on around here? They probably just don t care all that much." Asuka grinned evilly.

Tarou chuckled. "Ah. Occam s Razor."

"No, the simplest explanation would be that they are just plain late."

He managed to stop fidgeting. "Well, I wish they d get off their collective rear ends and hurry up. Do you know what kind of things that can be done to you with a small blood or tissue sample?"

Asuka hadn t ever wondered about that, to be honest. If he was scared... "Uh... no. Why, are they bad?"

"You could say that." He chuckled and glanced at the door. "I m not inclined to take the risk, myself."

"You know..." Asuka was thinking out loud now. "I bet they ve got ALL kinds of stuff from me somewhere. Should I be worried?"

"Well, I m not sure." Tarou grinned, not without malice. "Do your enemies usually use mystical means to attack you?"

"No..." She sighed. "They just try to blow up the city." He blinked at that, then smiled. "I guess you might call it that..."

"I wouldn t worry."

"You ARE worrying." Asuka stuck her tongue out at him. "Stupid. Nobody uses voodoo nowadays."

Both of them started as the doorknob turned... Kaji crashed through, his face dark beyond gray. "Asuka! Misato... she s gone. We ve got to stop her!"

Tarou cocked an eyebrow. "I assume that she s about to do something drastic, or you wouldn t bother with the melodrama."

"Who the hell are you?" Kaji looked over Tarou for a second. "Screw it. Asuka, Misato s going after her s... daughter. We ve got to stop her before she kills somebody."

"What?" Asuka tried to follow Kaji s line of reasoning, failed. "Whatever. Come on, you can explain. Where s she headed?"

"The Tendo dojo, probably. Ranma will most likely be there."

Tarou was on his feet before Asuka. "I ll take you there. What the hell does this have to do with fem-boy, anyway?"

"FEM-BOY? What, you know Ranma?" Kaji motioned to the elevators. "She s probably only a minute or two ahead of us. We ll catch her if we hurry."

Rei walked down the street toward the dojo. "What do you mean, don t call him Pantyhose?"

Ryoga sighed. "He doesn t like to be called Pantyhose, that s why."

"But it s his NAME." Rei didn t understand what Ryoga was trying to say. "I shouldn t call him by his name?"

"As far as I m concerned, his name is Tarou. The Pantyhose bit was added on by Happosai back when he was a baby."

"Then why does he worry about it?"

Ryoga shrugged. "Most people think that somebody named Pantyhose is funny. They hear it and laugh at him, and he doesn t like being laughed at. Especially by people that he thinks aren t as good as him."

"Aren t as good? What s that supposed to mean?" The concept sounded odd to Rei.

"I m not up to explaining that one. Just call him Tarou." Ryoga looked up from the road. "It ll make him happy."

Kaji slung his car around the corner, at least twenty kilometers per hour over what would have been a safe speed, and fifty over the legal limit. He wasn t paying attention to the road, though. "What do you mean, Ranma s a guy?"

Tarou chuckled from the passenger seat. "I see how you could have been mistaken... but yes, he s male."

Kaji removed one hand from the steering wheel and made gestures at his chest level. "Then how do you explain... well..."

"Jusenkyo curse. He turns into a girl with cold water." Asuka stared out the front windshield with a slightly dazed expression. "What do you mean, Misato s going to kill him?"

"Curse? What, he s a transsexual? With WATER? I should have guessed, damn it." Kaji banged a hand off of the steering wheel, sounding the horn and preventing three accidents. "Every so often, when I was asking around about her, somebody would say HIM instead. I chalked it up to confusion and the fact that he used to be a guy... Curse. A damned curse." He looked over at Tarou. "Do you know how SILLY that sounds?"

"Remind me to show you mine, sometime. You didn t answer her question, though. I m not necessarily against having fem-boy killed, you understand, but why would Misato want to do it?"

"She s his mother." Kaji waited for the shock to fade off of the other two s faces, then continued. "Years back, before I met her, before the Impact, her folks arranged a marriage with Genma Saotome. It didn t work out, from what she can remember and I can tell, they were both miserable. Genma came up with something that would let him take off with the kid, training something or other... Misato loved the kid, though. She made Genma promise to raise him to be a... "man among men", she said... or she d hunt them both down and force them to commit seppuku."

Asuka took a deep breath. "That s awful."

"Yeah. Then, as soon as he was gone, she divorced him and went to live with her father, who was at an Antarctic research station at the time. This was late in the year 2000... I think you know what that means." Kaji threw the car through another turn. "Damn, but I wish that she d forgotten. You two, how the hell did YOU know Ranma anyway?"

Tarou spoke first. "I ran into him a few months ago. He s staying at the same house as my enemy... and his curse makes him stand out a little. To be honest, I find this whole situation incredibly ironic."

"But you re not laughing." Asuka shrugged. "Ryoga introduced us. I think that they ve known each other for a long time. Good friends."

Tarou choked back a laugh. "Asuka, Ryoga s spent most of the last two years trying to kill Ranma."

"What, really? They didn t try to kill each other... well, maybe once."

"Yes, really. Ryoga blames Ranma for everything, as far as I can tell. Getting lost, his curse, taking his girlfriend..."

Kaji broke in. "What, you mean Ryoga has a curse too? This is getting downright bizarre, you know."

Tarou chuckled. "You get used to it."

"I think Ryoga s not trying to kill him anymore, though. After all, he s helping Ranma get married." Asuka winced at a near miss between Kaji s little sports car and a triple-trailer combination.

"Ranma s getting married? Finally, the fem-boy makes up his mind. Who won?"

"Excuse me?" Kaji glanced away from the road for a second to look at Tarou. "He s getting married and you don t KNOW who the bride is?"

"Well, he DOES have three fianc es." Tarou looked over at Asuka. "Or did he clear that up already?"

"Don t ask me. I just know that he s getting married to Akane."

"I pity Akane." Tarou pulled a chocolate bar from a pocket, unwrapped it and started eating. "So, what s the plan, tall, dark, and unshaven?"

Kaji didn t even register the joke. "We go in, disarm Misato and keep her from hurting anybody, then we try to explain, I guess. A damned curse. Try not to hurt her, though, okay?"

"We should be able to manage that." Tarou flexed his right arm.

"Hey, what happens if we beat her there?" Asuka cringed as Kaji wove through traffic.

Kaji sighed. "Won t happen. Even going like this, I m much slower than she is. With how she s thinking now... she s probably there already."

"Or in a wreck somewhere." Tarou s eyes narrowed.

"No chance. Sure, it LOOKS unsafe, but she can really drive." Kaji s eyes unfocused, looking through the windshield. "I don t believe it. A curse." He shook his head, trying to clear it.

Misato pulled the car to a halt half a block short of the dojo. Deep breaths. She wasn t thinking straight, KNEW she wasn t thinking straight, but she did know what had to be done. Done, and done properly. And done now.

She pulled the bundle from the passenger side of the car, tore the wrappings in a single motion. The katana was beautiful, almost ornate, and the lacquered sheath shone in the evening light. She had carried this for fifteen years, now, and never once had she thought that she would have to use it. It had been a reminder, a momento, something to hold when she wondered about her son. Now, it had a use.

She wasn t quite ready yet, though. She picked up the discarded wrapper and withdrew a length of white cloth, a strip an inch wide and three feet long. Pulling it across her forehead, she wove her hands twice, tying the back into a hard knot. The ends, she could leave to hang down to her shoulders. NOW she was ready.

She stepped out of the car, leaving her keys in the ignition and the door unlocked. She didn t have any guarantee of success, here. Genma... he was a coward and a weakling, and he d never raise his hand against her, even to defend himself. Ranma... she didn t know that about him, couldn t assume anything about her son. Not her daughter, her son. But if there was a fight, she might not win, and she wouldn t want to be delayed here in any case.

Thirty seconds of walking took her to the gate. A wooden sign, much worn and singed along the bottom, proclaimed the Tendo Dojo of Anything Goes Martial Arts. The words tugged at the back of her mind, but she buried them in her purpose. Later, she could wonder about it.

A single push opened the gate and let her inside. She didn t fancy trying the front door, not with what she was carrying... she d go in the back way. After all, nothing said that the two had to be alone, either.

She circled the house, walked to the large structure behind the house. Very likely, this was the dojo itself. She could start here, finish, and leave, or enter the house if needed. The door was closed but not locked, and she heard the sounds of exertion from the other side. She reached out and slid the door open.

The dojo itself was spartan... woven floor mats, sliding panel walls, wooden ceiling panels. An altar stood high on one of the longer walls, flanked by two mottoes. Before she could read them, she noticed the occupant, a girl with hair so dark that it shone blue and wearing a yellow gi.

The girl spun around, turning from the shards of a destroyed cinder block, and noticed Misato s entrance. Her hands came up immediately. "What are you here for?" Clearly, this wasn t the first time someone had intruded on this dojo.

Misato cleared her throat. "I am here for Genma Saotome, and his son, Ranma Saotome."

The girl rolled her eyes. "And what do you want WITH them?"

"Their lives." Misato thumbed the guard of the katana with her left hand, bringing her right down to grasp the hilt. "Where are they?" She noted that none of her emotions leaked into her voice.

"Oh, no." The girl looked up, addressed the ceiling. "I am SICK of this! Couldn t people just leave well enough alone? Noooo. They have to come over here and ruin OUR lives!" She glanced back down, and there was fire in her eyes. "Go away and don t come back. Whatever they did to you, forget it happened. Just leave us alone."

"Or what?" With a quick motion, Misato drew the katana, letting the light play off of the well-oiled blade. "I m not leaving until you tell me where they are."

"Give it a rest, would you? Honestly, I get so tired of this sort of thing. And do you HAVE to be so melodramatic?" Misato blinked, but the girl continued, gaining in volume as she approached Misato. "Now put that thing away and go back to your life before it gets ended like everything ELSE does around here! Don t you people ever stop and think about how inconsiderate you re being? Or how your petty little feuds hurt everybody around you?"

"SHUT UP!" Misato lashed out with the sheath, aiming to catch the girl in the jaw... but she caught the end, pulling it from Misato s grasp and using the momentum to cross the room. "What the hell do YOU know? He made a vow!"

"Yeah, well, get in line." The girl flicked her arm out, snaring a kendo practice sword from the wall.

Misato felt her teeth grind together as she started across the floor. Purpose... she didn t feel anything but the purpose that drove her forward. This nit would be no obstacle, and she could continue to fulfill that purpose.

Rei looked at the gate of the dojo. "Ryoga, why make a gate if you leave it open?" Not that she expected a logical answer, not here. Things didn t make sense at this place, or at least not the sense that you could follow in class or at NERV.

"Hm..." Ryoga rubbed his chin. "They usually don t leave it open..." He vaulted the wall, and Rei quickly sprang after him in pursuit. He walked through the grassy lawn towards the dojo, and she followed, limping slightly and ignoring the pain. She should have paid more attention to the landings, she thought. Jumping like Ryoga could was easy, just a matter of using the right muscles, but the landings always hurt her feet and ankles.

She heard a series of grunts and yells, the kind that her mind associated with fighting. At that moment, Kasumi ran out of the doorway to the dojo. "Ryoga!" She was flustered, and her hand movements were jerky and incoherent. "She came in... looking for Ranma... fighting in the dojo... Akane..." At the last word, Ryoga s eyes changed. Rei could see the skin around his eyes take on a greenish hue, green from the light coming from in those eyes.

Without speaking, he shrugged out of his backpack, one hand clutching the handle of his umbrella. Rei noticed two forms against the rice paper wall of the dojo, framed in silhouette by an unseen lamp. Both of them were holding something, something which they were swinging at each other. One was a good bit taller than the other, though... Ryoga grunted, snapped his arm out straight.

Misato could feel herself breathing heavily. This wasn t right, there was no way that a girl should be able to have held out for this long. She was good, that much was clear. Still, though, Misato smiled grimly as she looked at her opponent s ruined weapon, sheared in half by her last strike. Long, yes, but not much longer.

Every hair on Misato s neck stood on end, and in her feral state she KNEW that she was about to be attacked, and the manner of the attack. Flinging herself backward, she dropped her smile... and then flailed her arms for balance as a bamboo umbrella tore through the paper wall of the dojo and caught the lapel of her jacket. Another inch, and it would have hit her sword arm directly.

Both Misato and her opponent turned their heads to look at the hole in the wall. She could hear a thumping sound, like somebody running... and the wall blew outward in a spray of wooden slats and ruined paper. Ryoga stood there, his eyes clouded, and looked at the two of them. No, he was looking at the other girl, taking in her broken bundle of lathes, her heavy breathing, the shallow gash that marked Misato s only hit.

"AKANE! NOOOOO!" Ryoga hunched over... and lit up like a Christmas tree, not a decorated one, but with a green glow the same shade as a live fir. It extended several inches from his body, giving the dojo a surreal appearance. Several chips of wood and stone lifted off of the ground and surrounded him as his head snapped up. His voice was a flat monotone as he said, simply, "I WILL KILL YOU." She couldn t see his eyes through the greenish haze...

He shot across the room, faster than her eyes could follow, and even in her battle frenzy she barely sensed his attack. Not even trying to counter, because after all this was Ryoga and not her enemy, she ducked the blow and hopped backward, crouching and staring at him. His fist passed through empty air... and she was picked up, flinging her right arm out in desperation, trying to avoid her own blade.

Something started to penetrate the fog of her mind... why was Ryoga here? He d said something... about a dojo, about knowing a girl named Ranma... about a girl named Akane. She jumped up, evading his next attack, and still was struck with a force stronger than the wind from a typhoon, blowing her across the mats to rest against a wall.

Pain blossomed in her hip. The landing hadn t been good, and she d twisted it farther than she had intended. It wouldn t slow her down much... He launched another attack, this time easy to read, and she swept her katana up in a gleaming arc, intending to use the edge to force his striking arm up and away.

The sword met Ryoga s arm, and she lost sight of him as she was blown backwards by the force of the blow. She rolled, noting the grass under her, and looked up at the red of sunset. Ryoga had blown a hole in the dojo wall, and she d been tossed through it like a sack. She knew that she wouldn t be able to avoid any more attacks like that. Why hadn t it worked? She pictured the blade meeting his arm... that s all it had done. It hadn t gone in, the sword hadn t gone in at all. Misato briefly wondered WHY she d attempted that against Ryoga...

He looked up through the blasted wall of the dojo and growled, deep in the throat. She couldn t see any recognition in his eyes, or anything else for that matter, and nothing that told her that he knew what he was doing. The small cloud of debris around him swept forward, battering her with tiny shards of cinder block.

She was going to die. Ryoga, who was a much better martial artist than she had ever been, and seemingly half-immortal to boot, was about to kill her, and there wasn t any way of stopping him. Something flared in her subconscious, an old conversation with Kaji, and she remembered her trump card. It would kill him, nothing remotely human could possibly withstand the deadly power of that technique, but she didn t have the choice now.

Kaji pulled the car to a halt, nearly crumpling the front end into the wall of the dojo. He sprang out, not even bothering to kill the motor, and hoped that Asuka and Tarou would follow suit. Over the dojo s wall, he could see a green glow that outshone the red of sunset.

Without thinking, he flung himself at the gate, shoving it fully open, and sprinted toward the glow. It was a man, large, but he couldn t see the face or features through the glare. He cocked a fist, bracing his feet, and leapt forward...

Kaji traced his path in an instant, seeing Misato with her sword extended, held in both hands. The stance wasn t one you could find in any of the modern schools, but Kaji recognized it instantly. She thought that she was about to die, that was the only reason to attempt that technique, and if it didn t work, she might be right.

He felt his throat going raw from his scream of "No, MISATO, NO!", but it would not come in time to save the young man.

Misato pulled herself up into a fighting stance, grasped the hilt of her katana with both hands. She would only have one chance at this, and it had to work the first time. She resolved to kill him quickly. A noise buzzed at her ear, two screams, one male, one female. Both were ignored in the depth of her focus.

She exploded into motion, her sword and arms moving without inertia, trailing through the space in front of her a dozen times in the first second. She felt her lips moving, forming the single-syllable chant that powered her focus and technique... Ryoga entered the space, and she narrowed her eyes, so that the resulting gore wouldn t blind her.

She flashed the blade out, hundreds of times... and it wasn t working at all. His arms twirled in an intricate dance, batting and deflecting the blade... he couldn t be responding to the attacks, his hands were moving in a pattern to block the pattern of her strikes. The aura flared once and disappeared, leaving a dumbfounded Ryoga to continue to parry and evade her attack.

How was that possible? He couldn t have survived that, how did he know how to survive that... her concentration slipped, and she lowered the point of her sword. Her ears started to function again, and she heard the sound of laughter... Ryoga s eyes had come back into focus, and he was giggling. Behind him, the girl Akane was biting her lip to hold back laughter, and Rei had fallen down and was rolling from the force of her own mirth. A shape plowed into Ryoga s side, giving her only an impression of green flashing with blue before knocking him away, and then somebody had grabbed her, forcing her hands off of the hilt of the sword and wrapping her, murmuring soothing things into her hair... it smelled like leather and sweat and Kaji.

She shook her head, clearing the last cobwebs from her mind, and glared at Ryoga, who was hugging Tarou as he laughed hysterically. "What the hell is so humorous about that?"

Akane stared at Misato. "You re his MOTHER?"

They were seated around the table, both next to one another. At one end, Tarou was doing his best job to make sure everybody knew that he wasn t trying not to grin, while Asuka just kept sighing and looking at Tarou. Across from her, she could see Rei blinking furiously, and Ryoga hadn t lifted his head from the table for fifteen minutes. Kaji sat next to Misato on the other side, with a relieved expression on his face.

Kasumi came in from the kitchen. "Would everybody like some tea?" She placed a platter in the middle and started serving, without waiting for anybody to reply.

Misato nodded, started to lift an arm to rub her neck, stopped, moved her other arm to rub the first, stopped. She was really hurting. "Yes, I m his mother. HIS mother."

Ryoga thumped his forehead against the table. "I m sorry. Really sorry. I didn t know... oh man am I sorry..."

Akane considered hitting him with a mallet, decided that it wouldn t do any good. "Enough already!" she said, with a laugh in her voice. "Just don t be so protective all of the time."

He raised his head. "Really?" He looked at Misato. "You re not mad?"

Misato sighed. "Well, I m not really happy about it... and you DID go a bit overboard, you know. We ll have to pay for that wall."

Tarou chuckled. "I m sure they have a spare somewhere around here..."

"Oh, yes, we do. Should I go get it?" Kasumi started to get up.

Asuka smiled. "He was joking, Kasumi. RYOGA will be happy to replace your wall."

"I would?" Akane saw that Asuka did not share her compunction about hammering Ryoga. "Well, I suppose it wouldn t hurt..." He looked over at Akane. "Are you all right?"

She flexed her left arm. The cut hadn t been deep, really, more of a scratch than anything else. She looked down at the spotted yellow bandana tied around her biceps. "It s fine, really."

Rei looked at Misato. "I understand about the vow and the curse and Ryoga, but why aren t you mad?"

Misato smiled. "Well, I ve got a healthy son. That s a lot more than what I had yesterday at this time... besides, the way you describe it, he s pretty manly." She looked over at Tarou. "THREE fianc es?"

"And a fourth girl, but she s a raving loon." Ryoga cringed, folding in on himself. Akane thought that his reaction was fairly odd... did he have a thing for KODACHI? She was just glad that the psycho was dead.

Wait a second! "ONE fianc e, thank you very much." Akane shot a dirty look at Tarou, which only made him smile more.

Misato stopped smiling for a second, lost in thought, and then a huge grin split her face. "That s RIGHT! You re getting married to him!" She started to hug Akane, but kept hesitating after every time she bent a joint.

"I accept the feeling." Akane turned to the rest. "Great. Not even married yet, and already my mother-in-law tries to kill me." This started everybody laughing, except for Rei, who started whispering with Ryoga. Probably asking what a mother-in-law was, Akane thought.

Soun packed up the portable shogi board. "Well, Saotome-kun, shall we go?" He looked at his old friend, the panda, and started away.

Genma waved a sign in the air. {I m not going, Tendo-kun.}

"What do you mean? It s almost dinnertime, I m sure Kasumi will have something ready for us." Soun sat back down, though.

The panda pulled out another sign. {I ve given this a lot of thought.} Genma flipped the sign over. {Ranma and Akane are finally getting married, right?}

"Well, yes." Soun smiled broadly. Finally, his little girl had given in to the inevitable, falling in love with Ranma.

{And did WE do anything to do it?}

"Um, no, come to think of it, Saotome-kun."

{Right.} {Every time WE try something, it screws up.}

"Come now! That was just chance. There s no reason that we shouldn t have succeeded. And we did!"

{Just lucky, that s all.} {I m not taking any chances.} Genma threw the sign away, pulled out another. {I m going on a training trip, without Ranma.} {I ll be back for the wedding!}

"Saotome-kun..." This... it was a bit drastic, but so honorable! Completely unlike his usual face, true... which just went to show you. At heart, Genma was a true martial artist. Soun felt his cheeks dampen with tears.

{I suggest you lay low, too.} {If we do nothing at this point, complete victory will be ours.}

"That s brilliant! I couldn t have put it better myself."

{Say goodbye to Ranma and Akane for me.} {I ll be leaving now.} Genma leapt up into a nearby tree, coming back down with a pack. It looked ridiculously small, compared to the bulk of the panda.

"But Saotome! How will you manage, without me?"

The panda barked a laugh. {I got Nabiki to pay me fifty thousand yen to leave for a month.} {She said that it was the best bargain she d ever seen.}

Ohh, to think that his own daughter was so noble as well... "Thank you, thank you! You are too good for this world, Saotome-kun."

Genma stared at the horizon as he walked away from his best friend. True, the step he was taking was drastic, possibly overkill, but nothing must stand in the way of the union of the Tendo and Saotome lines. Still, though, that was only a fa ade, perhaps a justification for his true intent.

Oh, he couldn t explain it to anybody, of course. He d just had a premonition, this morning. It was quite possibly the strongest feeling he d ever had in his life, and it pointed to impending doom if he remained at the dojo. Of course, taking Ranma at this point would only break up whatever understanding he d reached with Akane, so that really wasn t an option.

He leapt up, neatly landing on top of a passing truck headed out of town. Besides, he thought, how long had it BEEN since he d traveled for fun by himself? Fifteen years?

Ranma jumped over the wall, just after dusk. If he was lucky, his father wouldn t have managed to eat ALL of the leftovers, and he could still get some dinner. He momentarily cursed the fact that Nabiki insisted on using a warehouse across town to meet him when they discussed wedding finances. Especially because most of her plans included him doing hard labor to raise the money they d need...

He clutched the engagement ring in his hand. He still couldn t understand why he hadn t just given it to her the day before... after all, Ryoga had even cleared out so it wouldn t be awkward. Ranma momentarily wondered at Ryoga s change of heart, admiring the lost boy s strength of character. But tonight would be perfect, they could go up on the roof to look at the stars, just the two of them... and he could give it to her then...

His gaze fell on the dojo, noting the huge holes blasted in the walls, and the assorted debris littering the lawn. He circled around, wary of a possible ambush... nothing but the sounds of conversation coming from the house. He peeked around, seeing the dining room through an open panel...

There were a LOT of people at that table. Kasumi, and that Kaji guy from the other day, and Ryoga, and Rei, and Asuka... and Tarou? What the hell was Pantyhose doing back, anyway? Next to Akane was a woman he didn t know, with purple hair, wearing a red jacket and a white headband. Ryoga looked up... turned to look at Ranma, and stood up. He said something, bowing to everybody, and they all laughed. He could hear Tarou s suggestion that he not get lost on the way. Ryoga nodded, and walked outside to stand next to Ranma.

"Hey, Ryoga, what s up?"

Ryoga looked a bit strung out, like he hadn t had enough sleep. "Not much... when are you going to give her the ring, stupid?"

"I was just about to..."

"Yeah, right." Ryoga snorted, sounding much like Tarou.

On that note... "What s Tarou doing back here?"

Ryoga looked surprised. "Oh, don t worry about him, he was with us when we came. He s in town hunting the old pervert, as usual."

Ranma grinned. "Who said I was worried? By the way, Ryoga, I ve gotta say that your taste in women is improving. She s HOT."

"Huh? Who?" Ranma gestured to the newcomer, and Ryoga made a retching sound. "Ranma, that s disgusting."

"Really? Why is that?"

Ryoga bent over, gestured for Ranma to do the same. Ranma did, waiting for Ryoga to whisper something... when, directly in his ear, Ryoga shouted, "SHE S YOUR MOTHER!" He added, more quietly, "You pervert. Don t look at anybody but Akane."

End of part 14

Questions and comments go to akent .edu

You HAD to have seen that coming. Tell me you saw that coming... ducks


	15. Chapter 15

"He s your mom, Ranma."

What? Ranma turned back to the crowd around the table inside the dojo, still unaware of his presence, and looked at the newcomer more closely. She had long hair, purple, but not Shampoo s neon hue. Something darker. Red jacket over black tank top, with a silver cross pendant hanging from her neck. From the way she was laughing, he guessed that she d been on the losing end of a fight, recently... pain showed through her features.

Ryoga stepped towards the group, into the light spilling from the open doors. He waited for the laughter to die down, then cleared his throat. "Er... Misato... I d like to introduce somebody." Ranma saw him beckoning, walked into the light to stand next to him. "Misato, this is Ranma Saotome."

The woman stood up, staring at him with wide eyes. She took a few steps toward him, and he found that he was standing inside now, only inches from her face. She lunged forward, and he felt tears on his shoulder as she wrapped him in a loose hug. "I m sorry... I m so sorry... I never knew..." She sobbed into his shirt, then gave his ponytail a quick yank. "I didn t even know you were alive. Let me look at you!"

He let her guide him to an seat at the table, next to Akane, and sat down on his other side. Akane took his hand as he reached out to her and squeezed it, once. Ranma let his elbows drop to the table and turned back to his right. Misato was still looking at him, even if she had stopped crying. "Um... Mom?"

"Yes?" She nodded happily, then jerked and rubbed her neck with one hand.

"This is... a little embarrassing. Do you know..." He couldn t bring himself to finish the sentence.

She nodded again. "I heard about your curse, Ranma." She shot a dirty look at Ryoga, who was still standing at the entrance. "Though if SOMEBODY had been a little more forthcoming earlier..."

Ryoga raised his hands in protest. "Hey, how was I supposed to know that he was your kid? I don t go around telling everybody about this, you know."

"This is getting a little private." Kaji coughed behind his hand and stood up. "Misato, I ll talk to you in the morning... can you get home?"

Ranma sized up Kaji s voice and worried expression... there was something between him and Misato, probably. No telling what, though. Misato waved a hand at him. "It ll be fine, thanks."

Kaji bowed to Kasumi. "Thank you for the hospitality and tea, and I apologize for the intrusion of my... comrades." He quirked an eyebrow at Asuka and Tarou. "WE really should get going, however."

"Um... yeah! We ve got to go, really, early morning and all that." Asuka grabbed Tarou by the arm (huh?) and pulled him to his feet. "Ryoga, Misato, you coming?"

Misato looked up from Ranma and blinked. "Uh? What, go now? I just got here! We haven t seen each other in fifteen YEARS!"

Asuka dropped both her hands to her hips, barely allowing Tarou to disentangle his arm first, and bent over the table. "Yes, and I m touched, really, but if an Angel attacks tomorrow and you re here catching up on lost time, then we ll all be ticked at you..."

"OH, right!" Misato shook her head, causing several squeaks and cracks to emit from her spine. She turned to Ranma. "I ve really got to go... but as SOON as I m done tomorrow, I m coming here to get you." She wrapped him in another hug, and he lifted his arms to return it. "After all, we have SO much to catch up on!"

Uh... "Okay."

She continued speaking over his shoulder. "Akane, you come too, okay? As an apology for earlier..."

Ranma released Misato and turned around. "Earlier?" Akane s look spelled out "I ll tell you later", with a good amount of angry eyebrow twitch thrown in for good measure. "Okay, sure."

Paradise Lost, part 15 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax -  
Ryoga bent slightly, more as an aid to Misato than due to her weight on his shoulder. She wasn t really hurt, but she was going to be sore for a few days... his mouth tightened as he remembered his role in that. Again, he d jumped to a conclusion and almost killed somebody. It didn t matter that he d been exactly right this time... he d almost killed Misato. He WOULD have killed her.

Asuka and Tarou were getting into Kaji s car. Sensible. He d brought them down, and he could drop Asuka at home. They couldn t ALL fit in Misato s car, anyway. A quick glance at Rei didn t reveal much, as the only difference in her facial features was the slightly enlarged eyes. Could be confusion, could be surprise, could be shock for all he knew.

He pulled Misato s door open and watched as she climbed inside, then walked around the front of her car. Rei had opened the other door, and was easing a largish katana, sheathed, into the back seat. He wondered why she had a... of course, it was Misato s. He fingered slashes in the left side of his shirt, deep cuts that had not scratched the skin.

Closing the door behind him, Ryoga fastened his safety belt, checked it again to make sure that it was secure. "Misato, can you still drive?"

"No problem! Just watch." She turned the key in the ignition and started the car. Ten seconds and five ounces of melted rubber later, they were out of sight of the dojo. Well, she could still drive... as well as she always could. Ryoga braced himself on the armrest, wrapping his fingers around the indentations that they had made on his earlier trips.

Rei spoke from the back seat, startling Ryoga. "Why did you try to kill Akane, Misato?"

"I... I wasn t! Really!" Misato listened, heard no response from Rei, and continued, her smile changing into something else. "It wasn t... I went there to find Ranma, and his father Genma, to kill THEM. Really."

Ryoga nodded, remembering Ranma s story about his father s vow. "You went, but you didn t know about his curse?"

"Aheh... um... I didn t know he was... a guy. Kaji poked around some, for me, and all he found was the girl." Misato s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. "How long did you know, Ryoga?"

"Know what?"

"How long did you know that he was my son? You talked about him before; I finally figured that out. The fianc es. The fight. Why didn t you just tell me?"

Ryoga scratched the back of his head with his free hand, rubbing away a large sweatdrop. "I didn t know until you told me at the table in there."

"RIGHT." Misato s voice was heavy, dripping under the weight of sarcasm she placed on the word. "Just a coincidence, right?"

"Almost. If you found him, and learned about his curse, then I thought you might figure out mine."

"You should have told her earlier, you know." Rei s voice was almost drowned out by the hum of the engine, yet Ryoga could still hear it clearly.

Misato nodded. "She s right, Ryoga. Why didn t you tell me, anyway?"

He considered a straight answer, decided against it. "Oh, I don t know... would you have BELIEVED me if I d told you that I turned into a little black pig whenever I touch cold water?" From Misato s look, he had a lot of work to do on his sarcastic tone... she was taking it at face value.

"How did Rei find out, then?" Misato looked into the back seat, letting the car drift over into the right lanes of the road.

Rei smiled. "He ran over a sprinkler."

Misato started laughing, glancing back at the road just in time to avoid an oncoming bus. "THAT must have been weird."

Ryoga grimaced, thinking about that incident. He d have been really offended, he thought, if he hadn t been so shocked by Rei s laughter. Even now, he couldn t really recall her laughing at anything, besides Jusenkyo curses. Well, mostly.

"It was... unexpected. And inconvenient."

Okay, change the subject... "You still haven t told me why you were trying to kill Akane, Misato."

Misato shrugged, wincing at the shoulder movement. "I came in, ready to kill those two, and found her instead. She got really mad, I was already, and we started fighting. I really didn t mean to hurt her."

"Good." Ryoga felt some of the tension leave his body. "Are you okay?"

"More or less... you COULD have been a little less rough, you know."

"Ryoga... how did you do that?" Rei gestured with one hand, made a fist. "I didn t know PEOPLE could glow like that."

"I ll have Cologne show you... though I don t think I ever tried it THAT way before." Usually, he released the power of his anguish in the Shishi Hokodan attack. He d never tried storing it, and DEFINITELY never tried using it to augment his strength like that.

"Cologne?" Misato blinked.

"You DO have a lot to catch up on, you know."

Asuka nodded as the car stopped in front of Misato s apartment building. "Well, here we are. Thanks, Kaji-san." She winked once, playfully, and watched him laugh and shake his head. "Come on, Tarou."

The lanky man followed her as she left the car and started down the hallway to the elevator. "Remind me why I m following you, please."

"Simple... I don t think you have anything better to be doing." She pressed the button, summoning the elevator, and then turned to him. "Besides, you never DID get back those samples you gave today."

The shock that passed through Tarou s face was hilarious. "Ahh! I had completely forgotten about that!" He frowned and looked away from her. "That s ANOTHER one I can chalk up to fem-boy."

"I don t get it... why don t you get along with Ranma? I mean, you both have a curse..." Asuka stepped inside the elevator, and Tarou followed, tugging at his vest.

"That s just it. I don t MIND what Jusenkyo did to me. It s been that way all my life. You saw that yesterday, right? It probably saved my life... and it wouldn t have been the first time."

"Yeah... what IS that, anyway?" Asuka recalled the fleeting glimpses she had, something huge and furry, wings, tentacles, nightmarish really.

Tarou folded his arms across his chest, and chuckled. "It s me, I guess. There aren t two of them... oh, you mean what is it CALLED?" He smiled.

"You said, what, yeti-riding-bull-carrying-crane-and-eel?" Asuka took a breath. "With tentacles?"

"That pretty much sums it up."

"Where s the eel come into it?"

"I ve got a tail that looks like an eel." Tarou frowned. "Would have been nice if I had some kind of electric shock, too..."

"Yeah, but you didn t say that it was an electric eel."

"The yeti probably couldn t have held it, anyway. Look, don t try splashing me inside or anything... I m bigger than the apartment."

"No problem... you going to finish answering the question?"

"What, why I don t like Ranma?" They both stepped into the hall as the elevator opened, leaving room for a young couple. Asuka could hear a "Umao-san!" before the doors closed. "Look at it this way... I use my curse as an asset. I see it as a good thing, and live my life accepting it. Does HE? Noooo. Just a lot of whining, and false bravado, and getting indignant over it. Makes me ill."

Asuka opened the door to her apartment and motioned for him to go inside. "What about your OTHER curse?"

"That s why we really don t get along. He always calls me by my full name." As she opened her mouth, he made a sharp gesture. "DON T bother reminding me, we both know what I mean without you going and saying it. You d think he would have some consideration, being picked on by the old pervert like he is."

Asuka slumped down to a chair. "He did seem a bit rude."

"AND he gets all the girls." Tarou sprawled out over the couch and folded his arms over his chest again. "The indecisive fool. He toys with their emotions, plays them off against one another, and they throw themselves at his feet. I can t even get a decent date, not with my name."

Couldn t get a date? "What, are you THAT sensitive about it?" Asuka sighed and shook her head. "And what do you mean, he toys with women? He s getting married, you know."

Tarou cocked an eyebrow in her direction. "That surprises me more than you know. To be honest, I m not very happy about it, either. Akane deserves better than a fem-boy."

"You sound like Ryoga, saying that."

"Somebody call me?" Ryoga walked into the apartment through the shattered hole in the wall. "Come on, guys, let s get some dinner."

Tarou s face screwed up into a ball. "I don t think I can eat the lush s cooking twice in a row."

"Don t sweat it, Tarou. We gave her an aspirin and put her to bed. After all, she s had a rough day." Ryoga grinned.

"Always knew that you d eventually sink to beating up on women, pig-  
boy. Wasn t that... display just a little bit much?"

Ryoga shrugged. "She might have hurt Akane! I just... you re right, I got carried away. I hope she s not mad."

"Oh, no, I m sure she nearly has her throat torn out by berserk Eva pilots every day, Ryoga." Asuka got up and headed for Misato s kitchen, where Ryoga did most of his work. Tarou and Ryoga both followed, Tarou holding the lost boy s shoulder to make sure that he didn t get turned around. "So, what s for dinner?"

"Rice." Ryoga went to the stove, dished out a helping on four plates, and set them down at the table. Rei, already seated, started on hers immediately.

"And?" Tarou and Ryoga both gave her a blank look. "What are we having with the rice, Ryoga?"

Ryoga turned to look at Tarou. "Isn t rice a good dinner?"

Tarou snorted. "I TOLD you that civilization makes people weak."

Argh! That wasn t the reaction she wanted at all. "Hey, Rei, don t YOU want something besides rice?" It was a last-ditch attempt, to be sure, but...

"... No, not really. Why?"

Asuka threw her hands up. "I don t understand you people at all. Am I the only normal one here?"

Tarou and Ryoga both nodded before starting in on their dinner. Asuka sighed, popped open the fridge, and grabbed a beer.

*[Calm down! Just because THEY are a bit weird...]*

Asuka was SURE that she hadn t thought that. She shook her head, opened the beer, and went to look for snacks in the pantry. She didn t hear the muffled squawk that came from behind the opening pantry door.

Rei opened her eyes. Something had been missing... she threw off the covers and walked into the hallway. This place, for all that it was more convenient, was different from her old room. She still couldn t sleep here.

Well, usually. The night before, she d slept deeply, much better than any time in the last two weeks. Something had changed last night, maybe? Pantyhose Tarou came yesterday, she thought... no, because he was still there, and it didn t help tonight.

She ran her mind over various ways to fall asleep. Counting sheep was highly regarded among various folk tales, but completely ineffective in practice. Various other remedies involved the consumption of various chemicals or the use of certain biological practices that Gendo had expressly forbidden. Exercise would be counterproductive, since it would likely just trigger an adrenal response.

One option was still available... and the material necessary was most likely present in Misato s fridge, although it would require some preparation. She stepped into the other apartment, careful not to snag her clothes on the loose splinters left from Ryoga s handiwork. A quick glance told her that Tarou was NOT lying on the couch. That, combined with the light coming from Misato s kitchen, told her that Tarou was quite likely awake.

When she walked into the kitchen, she saw him sitting at the table, eating a chocolate bar. "You still awake? I couldn t sleep, either." He tossed a wadded-up wrapper towards Misato s garbage can.

Rei briefly considered whether he expected an answer for that question, immediately realized that it was fairly inane, and decided to ignore it altogether. She opened up the fridge, started rooting around... beer... beer... more beer... a different brand of beer... ice... ice cream... ah, here it was. Rei pulled the carton of milk out, past two racks of beer, and placed it on the counter.

Tarou snorted. "Midnight snack?"

That was a valid question, she supposed... "No. I m getting some warm milk." With any luck, it should let her sleep... that way, she d be more aware in the morning.

"Ah." Tarou bit off another chunk of chocolate. "Well, sit down and let it warm up, then."

"Yes." She sat down, staring at the milk carton, idly wondering why there was somebody s picture on the back.

"Um..." Rei looked over and saw Tarou fidgeting, something she had not expected of him. "Why don t you think my name is funny?" His facial expression, while a bit complex, looked uncomfortable.

Funny? "I... don t know why it WOULD be funny." She looked down at her hands. "Humor... I don t understand a lot of it. The curses, they re funny. But a name? How CAN a name be funny?"

Tarou blinked, then gestured at her with a loose end of the hose around his waist. "You DO know what this stuff is, right?"

"Yes, it s called pantyhose. Feminine leg covering." Rei looked at it, but it didn t do anything. Was THAT supposed to be funny?

"Well, yes." He sighed. "You don t think that it s funny that a guy has the name of a feminine leg covering?"

"Um... no." She couldn t really see HOW that could be funny. She put a hand up to her head... the whole concept must be off.

For some reason, Tarou started smiling. A really big smile, like when Misato had her first beer in the morning. "That s great. You know, I ve never MET anybody that didn t laugh at my name. Thank you."

Thank you? For not laughing? She waited a second, thinking that he might explain, but he just smiled and looked at her. "You re... welcome." Something nagged at the back of her mind... Tarou awake... the realization hit her immediately. She stood up, walked over to the counter, and replaced the milk in the fridge.

"Um... you re supposed to DRINK the warm milk, Rei." Tarou chuckled.

"I don t need the milk." She pointed at him. "If you go to sleep, then that will be fine."

"Huh? ME? Why would MY sleeping help YOU sleep?" He narrowed his eyes. "You re not worried, are you? I would NEVER do anything like that."

"Like what?"

Tarou s face shifted to... something. "Never mind what. Why?"

Oh well... she decided to explain. "Where I used to... live... it was very loud, and I must have become accustomed to sleeping with loud noises. It s quiet here... but you snore very loudly, so it makes it easier for me to sleep."

"I do NOT snore." Tarou folded his arms across his chest.

"Yes, you do."

"No, I do NOT."

Rei blinked. "How could you know if you snored?"

"That s against the point. I don t snore." Tarou turned his head. "Do you ALWAYS sleep in your uniform like that?"

"Um... yes." What did he mean by that? She d never even considered that as a problem... were you supposed to change before going to bed? No, that would lead to a lot of wrinkled clothing... She yawned, quietly, and headed for her room. With any luck, he would start snoring soon and she could get some sleep.

Misato slammed the now-empty beer can to the table and let out a whoop. Amazing, what a little sleep could do for somebody! She could barely feel all the injuries she d taken the day before. Well, actually, her hip was still giving her a bit of trouble... she grabbed her second beer. Time for some painkillers.

She looked up, noticed the look that passed between Ryoga and Tarou. "Is she always like that?" Tarou s eyebrow quivered.

Ryoga swallowed his last bite of fried egg and nodded. "I think so. You get used to it after a while..."

"Hey, Ryoga, you ve got duty today." Talk about her behind her back... well, in front of it, really... "I expect that you ll be coming with us, Tarou?"

"No, I ll just be leaving those blood and tissue samples in the possession of a large secret organization. Of COURSE I ll be coming with you." Tarou chuckled to himself.

"Good, good... I do have a stop to make first. You two don t mind, do you?"

"I ll make my OWN way, thank you. Like I said, I m never getting in a car with you again."

Misato blinked and drained her second beer. "You d think that I wasn t a good driver."

Ryoga nodded to Tarou. "It s all right... just let her drink a couple more and we ll be fine."

"Have you gone completely insane, pig-boy?"

"Quit complaining and let s go, guys." Misato grabbed her jacket, shrugging it on as she headed for the door.

The car rolled to a stop outside the Tendo dojo. Ryoga frowned as Misato got out of the car and went inside. "I didn t know she meant HERE."

Tarou, sitting in the back seat, snorted derisively. "Maybe she changed her mind and she really IS going to kill fem-boy after all."

"You re such an optimist." Misato came out a minute later, towing a still-sleepy Ranma behind her. She opened her door and motioned for Tarou to make room.

"Huh?" Obviously, Ranma had just awakened... he rubbed his eyes and looked at Tarou. "Oh, great, first thing in the morning, Mom drags me out of bed and now I have to ride with Pantyhose."

Tarou reached out one arm, grabbing Ranma s shirt and pulling him inside. "Watch it, fem-boy, or I ll give you a very painful wake-up call." Ryoga started laughing, but quieted down as Misato got in the car. "Much as I m completely indifferent to your personal safety, fem-  
boy, I suggest that you fasten your seat belt."

"Would you lay OFF calling him fem-boy, Tarou?" Misato looked at the ceiling for a second, then started the car. Ryoga looked in the back seat... Ranma s eyes snapped open, and he immediately braced himself.

"Whoa! Wait a minute... I m NOT flying." Ranma hurriedly grabbed for his lap belt and slammed the buckle home. "Does everybody drive like this?"

Ryoga saw the puzzled look on Tarou s face, started laughing again. "No, Ranma, it s a family thing." Turning to Tarou, he chuckled, "I ll tell you about it later."

Misato flopped into her chair and absently started to rearrange the papers she d left there from the day before. Those three...! Misato didn t know whether she should strangle them all herself or wait for them to kill each other off. It was obvious that Tarou disliked Ranma, even more than Ryoga seemed to sometimes...

And the things they talked about! From the descriptions she d managed to wring out of Ranma, who really wasn t reluctant to talk but was usually unable to get five words in edgewise, he d spent an entire year or so in a bizarre mix of fighting, love triangles, and female impersonation. The last was mostly mentioned by Ryoga, although Tarou had a story or two to tell as well.

It was a very good thing that Ranma was not proud of it... but Misato thought that it was still far worse than not doing such things at all. Every time she thought of the concept, she could feel herself getting sick, and that was before she considered that it was HER son changing like that. She also wondered at Genma s sudden disappearance... almost entirely too convenient. The whole situation was his fault.

Misato immediately gathered up the... incriminating pictures that Kaji had found of her... son... and threw them in the garbage. That was ANOTHER thing she d have confront him with.

Fuyutsuki sighed. He d never seen Gendo with this expression on his face... "So, did you come to a decision yet?"

Gendo put a gloved hand to his forehead and rested his elbow on his desk. "It s not possible. I cannot think of any successful method at this point."

"Are you sure? Remember..."

"I know full well the reason we started this, Fuyutsuki. When the scenario changed, though... I ve looked at it from as many angles as I can think of, and come up with nothing that yields even a five percent chance of success." Light played off of the surface of Gendo s glasses as he turned to look at Fuyutsuki.

"I... also see no way to succeed. Another perspective, perhaps?"

Gendo waved his free hand at Fuyutsuki, dismissing the idea. "That would be worse than irresponsible at this point."

"Then what? You didn t call me here to tell me that we ve given up."

"No, I did not." A grim smile formed on Gendo s face. "We cannot attain completion as planned, that much is obvious."

Fuyutsuki blinked. "Why is that? The scenario has flaws, but is it broken yet?"

"We have not obtained the item, without which completion is not possible. The rest of the scenario detailed the proper procedure for completion... but without the item, or knowledge of it s whereabouts, continuing on our present course will lead to disaster."

"Then... do you have a plan B?" Gendo started at Fuyutsuki s joke. Of course, there was no other plan...

"Yes." Gendo s smile lost a good portion of its grimness, and something danced behind the tint of his lenses. "That I most certainly do."

Ryoga felt the subjective change as he synchronized with the Eva. A few moments of fierce acceleration took him to the practice chamber... He stepped 01 free of the restraints and flexed its arms. Sure, they kept TELLING him that it was a huge robot and didn t need to stretch before an exercise, but it still felt right.

He looked out over the simulated cityscape, noting the position of various weapon and power structures. Naturally, he had no confidence in his ability to remember how to reach them in an actual fight... it was fairly easy to pick them out in here, though, since somebody had thoughtfully color-coded them for him. He took three steps towards the nearest weapon outlet, careful not to snag his power cord, and waited.

Shigeru s voice bled into his consciousness. \"Okay, today we ve got a little surprise for you... here goes."/

Ryoga didn t LIKE surprises. Usually they ended up getting him in even more trouble than usual... the reinforced armor plate of the building folded back, and he moved his hand without thinking to fetch the gun inside... that... wasn t a gun. He moved the Eva s hand over it, finding a grip, and pulled it free...

The room shook from the force of 01 s sudden fall. Ryoga brought it up to a sitting position, still staring at the huge metal umbrella he held (no, the Eva held!) in his hand. It was battleship gray, and ridged with what looked like armor plate. "WOW! I really, really had wanted one of these!" He took a couple of experimental swings, feeling the weight and balance of the weapon.

\"We thought that you d like it..."/ Shigeru was laughing, and Ryoga joined him. \"Feel like a test drive?"/

Ryoga nodded, not noticing the bob of 01 s head. "I think that would be just what I needed this morning."

Ritsuko smiled as she handed the stack of printouts to Maya. "Look at those first."

Maya picked up the top two sheets, giving them a perfunctory look. "Ego barrier waveform scans. Rei s... and Asuka s." She shrugged and placed them in a separate pile. "I thought that you said that they weren t good for anything besides identifying possible pilot candidates, though."

Yes, that s what Ritsuko had thought. "Take a look at this one." She pointed at the next page, which showed Ryoga s readings.

"This is... is this even possible?" Maya s eyes widened as she looked at the bizarre, barely-substantial pattern. "Look... he doesn t have anything in the pilot region either..." Of course she d have noticed it, especially with the green highlighter bordering that region. "Whose is this... Ryoga?"

"And here s another one." Ritsuko pointed to the fourth and last piece of paper. "He s the one that Misato dragged in yesterday. Heavens knows where she found him... but look!" The pattern was radically different from Ryoga s, of course, but they both consisted of the same kind of fine lines and empty spaces, lace to the normal person s thick terrycloth. Again, no part of the pattern intersected that segment which seemed to disqualify a normal person from piloting the Eva.

Maya gasped, then broke into a smile. "He can pilot too? That s great!"

"Yes, but think for a second... WHY do these two have patterns like this? What does it mean?" Ritsuko had spent a few days of leisure time a precious commodity these days, it seemed in thought on those questions.

"Well... I m not sure, sempai..." Maya started typing furiously onto her keyboard, remaining hunched over the laptop for several minutes. Ritsuko waited patiently... well, her foot was tapping, and she was about to start dropping hints when Maya reversed the screen. "18.02 amu. It has something to do with 18.02 amu... and temperature extremes."

"Very good." Ritsuko smiled and sat on the corner of the desk. "I have absolutely no clue WHAT that might mean, though."

"Ice water?" Maya looked up from the laptop. "ICE WATER?"

"Come again?"

"Oh, come on, sempai! There s only one molecule that weighs 18.02 amu... it s water. Cold WATER." Maya smiled. "That doesn t make any sense, though!"

Ritsuko s grin fell off, and she felt a minor tug of annoyance at her failure to recognize such a simple thing... wait a minute, if it was just cold water, then... the earlier grin was replaced with another, this one quite a bit more pronounced. "Let s find out."

"Find out? But... it could make him discorporate completely! Or set him on FIRE, for all we know!" Maya shook her head. "I can t believe that you d do something like that to Ryoga-kun."

"Are you joking? I would NEVER do something like that to Ryoga... well, not when I have another option..." She laughed as Maya s face went from denial to shock. "You can be such a rookie sometimes, you know."

Ranma drummed his fingers on the side of the chair. It was nice, having his mom around and not trying to kill him... probably... but did she have to drag him out here? He was bored, couldn t think of anything to do that wouldn t get him in trouble, and to top things off, he had to share the boredom with Tarou.

"What s taking them so long?" Tarou banged his fist into a vending machine, one of several that lined this stretch of hallway. "How long can it take to dig out a little sample and bring it out here?" He swiveled his head and looked at Ranma. "You know, now that I ve met your mother, I think I understand why you re such a moron a bit better."

"HEY! Take that back!" Ranma s hands curled into fists, for perhaps the fifth time in fifteen minutes. "Look, none of this is MY fault."

"For once, you re actually right, fem-boy." Crossing his arms over his vest, Tarou leaned back against a soda machine. "This whole trip has just been a colossal waste of time."

"Almost." Tarou opened his mouth, but Ranma kept talking. "We DID get to see that training thingy they put Ryoga through. Even you have to admit that it looked cool."

Tarou frowned. "Not really... the thing looks like it was intended to be a mockery of the human form. Just like the rest of this place. The whole thing is cut off, artificial, sterile." Tarou s lip curled into a sneer. "I don t know how you can stand to be in here as well as you do."

"Takes effort, believe me." Ranma resumed tapping the armrest. After another minute, Tarou reached inside his vest and pulled out a chocolate bar, which he started eating immediately. "Hey, can I have one?"

"Fat chance, fem-boy. These are MINE." Tarou chuckled around a mouthful of chocolate.

Ranma decided to try out his own version of the glare of death... no, still wasn t right, Tarou was just smiling MORE now. "Mighty stingy, PANTYHOSE."

"mphf HEY! Do you WANT to start something?"

"Why not? I mean, it couldn t be more boring than this."

"More boring than what?" Ryoga walked down the corridor and dropped a few coins into one of the machines, grabbing the drink that it dispensed.

Ranma smiled. "Hey, Ryoga... where were you TRYING to go?"

"Um... the locker room. I forgot my pack." Ryoga reached a hand up and scratched the back of his head.

Tarou frowned. "That s not like you."

"You re right... it s starting to worry me." Ryoga sat down in the chair next to Ranma, took a sip of his juice. "It s like I m getting rusty. Do you know it s been a month since I was really, properly lost?"

"No way." Ranma shook his head, still smiling. "It s unnatural for you not to be lost."

"I ll refrain from making the obvious suggestion..."

Ryoga looked at Tarou. "What s that?"

"Ah, but the obvious can be subjective..." Tarou smirked at Ryoga. "Get lost."

Maya followed Ritsuko s path on the security cameras... first, to the lab, to get a cooler and that boy s test samples. Really, why was he so insistent on getting them back? He couldn t really believe in things like magic or voodoo, right? Maybe he was just being obnoxious. That had to be it...

After a quick stop at the lab s freezer, Ritsuko carried a small cooler through various hallways and elevators... Maya flipped over to the camera observing the lounge-hallway where... Tarou, she remembered... was waiting. Immediately, she saw him standing next to Ryoga and another boy of the same age that she didn t recognize. From the looks of things, they were having a heated argument. She couldn t follow the flow... Tarou and Ryoga would yell at the other, and get yelled at, and yell at each other for that matter. It was exactly the sort of chest-thumping testosterone display that she liked to avoid...

All three broke off immediately as Ritsuko came down the hallway. She said something, Tarou answered, and Ritsuko set her cooler down on top of one of the garbage cans. She turned her back... opened the cooler... Maya almost winced as Ritsuko flung the improvised ice-water balloon at Tarou. It streaked toward his face... and the other kid flashed out an arm, faster than Maya could follow, and caught it... snapping the flimsy disposable lab glove and drenching all three with cold water.

And the camera went out. Huh? Maya keyed up the camera network, noticed that the lounge camera was listed as "damaged", as well as several other systems in that area. She picked one a short distance down the hallway and flipped it on...

Ritsuko was crawling down the hallway... no, it was more like scrabbling, arms and legs moving in an uncoordinated fashion, just trying to get away... Maya looked down the hallway and immediately swallowed her gorge. A few keys later, she convinced the camera to zoom in... she could see a small pig lying next to a ruined snack machine, and a girl in Chinese clothing, but she didn t pay any attention to them. After all, the huge, monstrous form filling the rest of the hallway was more than enough to occupy her...

Maya s first coherent thought was that it looked remarkably like somebody s perverted nightmare, what with the horns and tentacles and all. Then, she realized that it was real... and that it was stuck fast in the hallway.

"Let s find out, she said." Maya sniffed and shut off the monitor. Serves Ritsuko right if that thing eats her. Wait... no, that wasn t fair... and if something REALLY were to happen... She keyed the intercom system. "Hyuuga, check camera..." She flipped the screen back on and read off a code number. "Get the Magi s opinion, will you?"

\"Get the Magi s opinion, will you?"/

Hyuuga set down the latest issue of Shonen Jump and tapped certain keys, bringing up the security camera system on his terminal... He banged the monitor. "Darn things... you think we would have upgraded the systems again."

Ranma kicked the door to the janitor s closet open, spotting a bucket and a hot water tap with the ease of repeated practice. A few seconds later, he was again male, and Tarou and Ryoga again humans. Not very happy humans, either.

Tarou, in particular, was incensed. He reached forward, placing his fist directly under Ranma s nose, and growled, "Do you mind telling me exactly WHY you decided that it would be funny to break a water balloon in here?"

"Well..." Ryoga shrugged back into his pants, and hunted around for his shirt. "Did you see the look on her face? I wish I had a camera."

"That s..." Tarou dropped his hands to his sides, his face breaking into a smile. "She looked like she was about to wet herself. Teach HER to toss around water indiscriminately."

Ranma snickered. "I think she was AIMING for you, man." And, of course, Ranma knew that she had been... the angle of the throw, speed of the uneven projectile, everything had telegraphed it. He knew that both Ryoga and Tarou had seen it, as well.

"All well and good..." Tarou walked over to the cooler, tearing into the contents and smashing every glass vial into a garbage can. "So much for that..."

"Tarou, man, put something ON will ya?" Ranma gestured to the tattered remnants of Tarou s pants, which took his transformations much the worse for wear. Oddly enough, that dragon scale vest never seemed to have the same problem.

Hyuuga fell out of his chair, laughing. He motioned for Aoba to come over to his station, then waited patiently as the other bridge technician looked over the camera displays. From the choking sounds that Aoba was emitting in between bouts of laughter, Hyuuga assumed that he d managed to get the joke, as well.

He calmed himself and reopened the intercom. "Ah... I say this with ALL due respect, Ibuki-san... but they should have covered that in your anatomy classes in school." He lost his straight face and bellowed even more laughter directly into the microphone.

\"But... there was a big... it was a monster!... TENTACLES, even!"/

Aoba straightened his face for a second. "I would HARDLY go that far." The two started slapping each other s backs, in an attempt to regain some measure of control.

\"MEN!"/

Hyuuga looked over Aoba s shoulder, spotted the opening elevator doors. "COOL it! It s the boss!"

Misato s footsteps echoed in the (almost) silent command center. "What s so funny?"

"N... nothing. Don t worry about it." Aoba managed to stagger back to his own station and immediately busied himself with a report.

"Oh?" Misato arched an eyebrow... no, it wasn t going to work this time, he d given up on her... "Oh well." Hey! He d managed to hold out! "Well, then I don t suppose you guys want to attend the party tonight..."

"Party?" Aoba s head snapped back up. "Always. When, where, why?"

"My place. Seven PM... reunion party. I found my son last night." Her eyes misted over... a bit. "I m having him and his fianc e over. What, you DO want to come?"

Well, for this sort of thing, sure, why not? Hyuuga nodded his assent.

Misato glanced down, looked at the still-open intercom. "How about you, Ibuki? Free tonight?"

\"Your son... he wouldn t be a boy in a red Chinese shirt, would he?"/

Misato nodded. Hyuuga was about to remind her, for the umpteenth time, that you couldn t use gestures over the voice connection... she remembered on her own. "Yes, that s him." Misato s face took on a wary expression. "WHY?"

\"Ah... well, either I m going crazy... or he just turned into a girl, and back."/ Maya s voice was still shaky.

"You re not crazy." Misato stabbed one finger down, shutting off the link. "I ve got to go see what trouble he s gotten himself into now... see you fellows later, then." She headed for the elevator.

The moment that Hyuuga heard the doors close, he shot a look at Aoba... the two immediately started laughing again. "Turned into a girl?"

Aoba chuckled, bobbing his head. "Forget it... it s for a party. Play that tape back again."

Mousse rubbed his head and cursed quietly in Chinese. No telling how long he d been unconscious... not that it mattered. He made a mental note to avoid mentioning Ranma and Akane s upcoming marriage to Shampoo. The damage had been done, though, and not just to him. It was too bad, really... Mousse never really had anything against Akane personally, and he didn t much like the idea of marrying a murderer himself.

He shrugged, awkwardly, and flapped his wings. Most of the feathers were still there... a few strokes took him into the air. Maybe he could stop whatever Shampoo was about to do. And maybe she d thank him and marry him on the spot. Maybe they served ice cream in hell, too. That thought didn t stop him, though, as he flew toward the Tendo dojo.

"Why, hello, Shampoo! Are you here to see Ranma?" Kasumi set down her cup of tea and looked at Ranma s young friend. He was lucky to have such a good friend... even if she DID occasionally forget what doors were for. After all, didn t EVERYBODY go through a wall at some time or another, around the dojo?

"Here see violent girl, not airen."

"Oh. Well, they re not here... they re with Ranma s mother right now." Katsuragi-san seemed nice, and she did resemble Ranma a little... well, male Ranma.

"Airen s mother? Shampoo thought... Does not matter. Where?"

Kasumi thought about correcting the Amazon s atrocious grammar, fleetingly, then dismissed the idea. She was an immigrant, and her accent would improve without the embarrassment of having it pointed out to her. "She left me an address and directions..."

Fuyutsuki considered knocking on the door to the apartment, but considering the noise from inside and the large "party, don t bother to knock" sign, it wasn t likely that it would be either necessary or effective. He punched the panel to open the door, and it drew back into the wall.

He reeled from the sound of what had to be a very expensive sound system, judging by the volume and bass. To be expected, really, and now why did Misato keep bothering him about her salary if she had stuff like THAT? It s not like he was paid well, himself. He removed his shoes in the entry and stepped inside the apartment.

Crowded. That was the first real impression he had of Misato s apartment... crowded and messy. It looked as if a token effort had been made to tidy up before everybody had arrived, and also that said effort had failed miserably. Discarded papers and books, wrappers for instant food and chocolate bars, and piles of clothing lurked around the corners of the room.

Ritsuko and Misato were both at the table in the kitchen, talking and drinking. From Ritsuko s expression, she was trying to match Misato drink for drink, which bordered on suicidal. He walked in, waving for the two to keep their seats, and opened a fridge. Finding nothing but what was perhaps the living quarters for the resident penguin, he guessed that the OTHER fridge was more likely to contain beer. Still, this had no effect on his astonishment at the sheer quantity of alcohol that Misato kept on hand. He reached in, taking a single can of Yebisu (always his favorite brand) and sat down across from Ritsuko.

"I... didn t expect to see you here, you know." Ritsuko took a long slug of her beer, and exhaled. He could SEE the vapor on her breath.

"Yeah, you re not exactly Mr. Sociable most of the time..." Misato, visibly drunk, punched him lightly on the arm.

"Well, I could hardly miss this occasion. Though," and he let the smile drop from both his face and voice, "you certainly did your best to occupy me. It s going to be difficult to repair that hallway."

"You... saw it?" Ritsuko s drink slopped over the sides of the glass as her hands shook. He hadn t exactly been calm when he d seen the tape of that... thing... even knowing what to expect. She had been there, and it had been a total surprise... She downed the rest of the beer, and Misato poured another before she could ask. "I... it s... completely idiotic. I should have known better."

"Should have KNOWN better?" Misato laughed. "How COULD you have known better? If he hadn t told me himself, then I wouldn t have believed it either."

"No... you don t understand... he DID tell me."

Fuyutsuki coughed into his drink. "Excuse me?"

"On the medical release form, under the section "other", he clearly wrote, I turn into a large minotaur-like monster with wings, an eel tail, and tentacles when I come into contact with cold water. " Ritsuko banged the heel of her free hand against her forehead. "I feel stupid."

"On that note, where is the young lad?" Fuyutsuki turned to Misato. "And on THAT note, what about YOUR young lad?"

"Oh, they re in the other room... said it was a bit noisy for them." She threw her hands up in exasperation. "The younger generation these days... don t they know how to rile their elders?"

"So, what do you think? Is he what you expected?"

"You obviously didn t hear the story yet, Fuyutsuki. Go and take a look for yourself." She was laughing softly to herself. "I still don t know what to make of the whole thing... it s so strange... but he s my SON. You know how it is?"

He shrugged. "Er, no, not at all. But I do expect that you just need a little time to get used to him."

"Oh, one more thing." Misato s face brightened. "He brought his fianc e along with him. Be nice, okay?"

"Am I ever NOT nice?" He put on his openly shocked face, and it seemed to work fairly well, from how the two women started laughing. Playing innocent was tricky, but so much fun once one got used to it. He stood up and excused himself, leaving the two women to their drinks.

Entering the living room, he tried to reconcile the sight of Hyuuga dressed in what appeared to be a karate gi and large blond wig with the quiet, self-effacing technician he knew from NERV. "Hyuuga-kun... what in the Nine Hells is that supposed to be?"

Aoba strummed a chord on his guitar in counterpoint to his laugh, although the effect was almost lost to the cacophony of modern music. "Seems nobody bothered to tell him that it wasn t a costume party."

"You could have warned me, you know." Hyuuga let his head drop to his chin, which forced both Aoba and Fuyutsuki to move their drinks, lest they be absorbed in the spiky wig.

"I think it looks cute. Sort of." Maya smiled from the couch across the room. "Not that I ve forgiven you two, yet."

"Forgiven?" The normal quirked eyebrow expression failed to elicit an instant response. Fuyutsuki decided that it must be some private manner, and not really important. "Never mind. Where are the children?"

"Other room." Hyuuga, head still down, jerked a thumb down the hallway, indicating a gaping hole in the masonry.

Fuyutsuki followed the gesture, careful not to scrape the arms of his jacket on any ragged points, and entered the other apartment. Immediately, the sound level was quieter... no. The MUSIC was quieter, but the occupants were more than making up for the difference. He stuck his head around the corner...

"What are you talking about? Take that back!"

"Oh, is fem-boy gonna throw a tantrum now?"

"Damn it, you two, this is MY HOUSE you re fighting in!"

"As if that ever stopped you before, P-chan!"

"I told you, quit picking on Ryoga, Ranma!"

"Now, now... everybody calm down..."

"No way, Kaji-san... don t stop it. Watching them is fun."

"Yeah. I ve got five bucks on the girly one. Touji?"

"Five on Ryoga."

"You can t bet on an argument like that! REALLY!"

Fuyutsuki slid along the far wall of the room, somehow managing to escape notice, and sat next to Rei. "Quite a crowd, eh, Ayanami?"

"They re noisy."

He grunted assent and waited for the fuss to settle down. After twenty seconds or so, one of the girls, the one with short hair, clobbered the other girl with a ten-pound sledgehammer. Immediately, Ryoga and the other boy stopped bickering, and watched as the first girl dragged the second by her pigtail to one of the chairs. The rest of the antagonists drifted to various places around the table.

Good time to make one s presence known, he thought. "Hello, everybody."

Ryoga s head snapped around. "Oh, hello, Fuyutsuki-san."

The other boy... Tarou, was it? Yes, Tarou... leaned back against one of the walls and folded his arms over a rather nice-looking scale vest. "Sorry about that... fem-boy just got a little carried away." Fuyutsuki briefly wondered how that boy had managed to procure such a large piece of dragon hide intact, and also how somebody with bishonen looks and earrings could justify calling somebody ELSE fem-boy .

"Do you think that you could STOP calling me that for one night? I mean, I haven t even called you..." The redhead cut off as the other girl slapped a hand over her mouth.

Fuyutsuki coughed, twice, and then harrumphed loudly enough to draw the attention of everybody in the room. "Let me introduce myself... my name is Fuyutsuki, and I m employed at NERV with the others. I know Rei, Asuka, Ryoga, and of course Kaji already." He swept his gaze over to the still-smiling boy. "I believe your name is Tarou, and it might do you well to apologize to the doctor next door."

Tarou grinned and chuckled evilly. "You are correct, my name is Tarou, and she DID have fair warning."

Smiling, Fuyutsuki continued. "Indeed. I remember YOU two dimly, of which you are no doubt grateful." He pointed at Ryoga s two young classmates, both of which had almost died of terminal stupidity during the battle against the fourth Angel. His finger moved to the young girl next to the taller of the two. "I take it that you are a friend of theirs?" And more than that... she looked like she was about to fall over the young man. And, of course, he was totally oblivious. It figured.

She bowed from her seat on the floor. "I am Hikari Horaki. Pleased to meet you."

He returned the bow, not quite as deeply. "And that leaves you two." He regarded the other two girls. The redhead sat up against the foot of the room s recliner, while the other sat down in it. He would have called both of them cute, if he had been thirty years younger.

"My name is Akane Tendo." She looked down, nudging the other girl.

"Yeah... I m Ranma Saotome."

Fuyutsuki erupted into a fit of coughing as a swallow of beer tried to go down his windpipe. "You re... um... what?" Come to think of it, there WAS a girl on that tape he d been shown by Aoba... not that you noticed her, what with the horrible monster filling the hall behind her...

Ranma turned to look at Akane. "Is he deaf?"

"No, you re just stupid." Akane rolled her eyes, and Ryoga reached over the table. Why did he have a hot water kettle on a hot plate... Ryoga unceremoniously poured the contents onto the redhead, who... it really wasn t good to watch reality twist like that on an empty stomach, he thought. In the redhead s place now sat a muscular boy, taller, and with black hair, though he retained the ponytail.

He looked over at Rei, who nodded. "You get used to it." He was momentarily shocked to see her smile.

"I think I understand." Fuyutsuki smiled, and took another sip of his beer. "Don t YOU owe an apology to poor Ritsuko too?"

Everybody present blinked. "Apology? She splashed ME, you know."

"I was referring to the night of the fifth Angel s attack." Ranma s expression instantly shifted from confused to guilty. "Ah ha. You do remember bouncing off of her face, then?"

"So that s where you went... idiot. You could have told me."

Ryoga half-reached his arm out to Akane. "He... had a good reason not to." His gaze, almost fogged over, sharpened and heated when looking at Ranma. "And you DO know that you have a bad habit of doing that sort of thing."

"Um... sorry?"

"I think that we re not the people that you should be apologizing to." He looked over and caught Kaji s smile...

Misato handed another drink to Ritsuko. "There ya go. Drink up... it ll make you feel better.

Ritsuko wrapped the glass in both hands. "I just looked at it, and I kept on thinking... you remember all of those idiots in college, the ones who were worshipping that Chthulu thing? I just couldn t think anything but that they were right..."

Asuka walked out of the elevator, savoring the night air from the roof. A lone figure perched at the edge of the eaves, looking out over the lights of the city. "I thought you d be out here..."

"I couldn t stay in there any longer, not without doing something that I probably wouldn t regret later." Tarou turned, looking at Asuka with an angry expression. "Every time I find some peace, he snatches it from me. Every time I find an answer, he interferes and changes the problem. I loathe that fem-boy, I really do."

"What is it with you and that word? Do you find some sort of sick pleasure in teasing him?" Asuka sat next to him on the rail.

"It s what he IS. Just like Ryoga s a pig-boy."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "You weren t calling Ryoga a pig-boy all night in front of Akane."

"Of course not." He answered reflexively, then looked as if he d have liked to have the words back. "Well... it would be pointless cruelty, that s why. Akane would never forgive him that."

"She doesn t know?" Asuka blinked in surprise. "How could you... for that long, and not know?"

Tarou shook his head. I m not sure. Maybe it s just fate, maybe it s chance. Maybe she does know, and just doesn t want to admit it."

"You lost me."

Tarou looked... almost uncomfortable, but he was laughing. "Well... P-chan, or rather pig-boy in his other form... is Akane s dear pet."

Asuka lost her balance, falling backwards from the rail to the roof. "That s horrible! Why doesn t somebody..." How could he degrade himself like that? She thought about Ryoga s piggy self oinking and cuddling and debasing himself for Akane, like some kind of plush toy... the thought was thoroughly revolting, and not just from Akane s perspective.

"Tell her?" He snorted. "Fem-boy can t... gave his word, and for once in his miserable life, he s intent on keeping it. I won t either."

"Well, then I will!" Asuka got to her feet, turned around, and took a step towards the elevator... only to feel a hand on her shoulder. She looked over her shoulder at him, but he just stood there.

"YOU won t either!" Tarou took a deep breath, and she could see him gathering himself. "Pig-boy, fem-boy, they have what they have coming to them. Not her."

She infused her voice with scorn and sarcasm, tilting her head back to address him. "So, now you re the judge of who has what coming from whom, are you?"

"Don t be silly."

A malicious smile crept onto her face. "Or maybe you just ride Ranma because you re afraid of the same thing." She saw his face convulse, and she kept going. "After all, HE just has some lousy curse, right? I didn t see him wearing earrings."

"Stop."

She laughed, loudly enough to hurt her throat. "After all, maybe it s YOUR manhood that you re not so sure about." She reached her arm back and flipped the end of the undergarment tied around his waist. "Shouldn t you have these ON?"

"ENOUGH!" He tensed, and Asuka felt his grip on her arm become a vise... he pulled her off of her feet and toward the side... and stopped. She gasped as he set her back down, roughly, and let go of her arm. She d have a bruise there tomorrow. "Damn you, that s enough. Go crawl back in your hole, you flat-chested little strudel girl."

She whirled, stepping into the elevator without looking back. Where did he get off, calling her that! She looked down at herself and shuddered. "I m not a little girl," she whispered to herself.

Shampoo walked up to the door that corresponded to the address that Kasumi had given her... stupid woman. Giving her the tools needed to kill her own sister. As if she hadn t even noticed the sword. Then again, maybe she hadn t... that woman had never quite seemed all there to Shampoo.

She looked, finding no doorknob, and decided that it really didn t matter anyway. The first kick crumpled the flimsy door and the second tore it away from the wall. She rushed inside... with airen here, she had to work quickly, and present him with a finished act.

How DARE Akane try to marry her husband? Just because he hadn t quite come around yet... the insult would have been unforgivable in her homeland. Here, she had to make some allowances for the fact that Akane was not of the tribe. Thus, she would have the honor of dying by the sword, instead of a shameful death by poisoning.

Shampoo took two steps past the entry... panning from left to right, she noticed two women drinking in the kitchen, another woman listening to a man play a guitar in the living room, and a hallway to her right. From the sound, mixed with some kind of tasteless music, Shampoo guessed that Akane and the others would both be down the hallway.

She turned and stalked down the hall, sword leading and bobbing. Empty room on the left... Room on the right, almost empty... she briefly wondered why the doors of the rooms were open. Something white flashed from another doorway to her left... she brought the sword to bear, and froze. The warrior walked out of the bathroom, not noticing her presence, and stretched...

She felt her nose start to bleed from the impact of his elbow. Whatever he was, he had to be an incredible martial artist to have launched that attack without betraying any sign of knowledge of her presence... somebody, most likely that Kasumi woman, had given warning to her prey, and here was a guard to stop her. She smiled. He was unarmed, and wouldn t even slow her down.

He turned, face completely blank, and regarded her. She shifted the sword s grip to her left hand and launched a horizontal swing, aiming to cleave his skull open at the temple... as soon as she started moving, his eyes bulged, and he ducked the swing. The sword scored a line in his shirt, missing his skin. She briefly wondered what kind of outlander battle cry sounded so much like a rushed apology... then she was blind, his hair had completely obscured her vision, and he was running forward, his feet landing irregularly. She couldn t get a foot around his to stop him, and in a moment they were back in the living room. He staggered sideways, his head still down, and she fell to the floor.

He recovered and looked at her, but she didn t notice his horrified expression as her fist shot out. One move was generally prohibited among combat between Amazons and men, in deference to the weaker sex s vulnerability, but this man had proven his worth and she had no interest in his seed. Her aim was true... and he grabbed her fist, his awkward-looking grip grating the bones in her right hand against one another. She clamped her jaw on a scream as he pulled further, trying to dislocate the wrist...

She let his momentum carry her to her feet, accepting the pain to gain a momentary advantage. If she didn t finish this one quickly, she wouldn t be able to reach Akane before airen reacted, and she couldn t just bull Ranma out of the way like this man. She set one of her feet firmly, pivoting the other up over her head in preparation for a devastating axe kick to the base of his skull.

His left leg crumpled beneath him, in an impressive display of mental powers overcoming the physical limitations of bone and cartilage, and his entire body followed it down... including his left hand, which still clutched Shampoo s in its painful grip. She screamed in agony as she was jerked forward, not noticing the placement of his other leg until she had stumbled over it... he released the grip, completely, and she fell through the open window.

Aoba stared at Hyuuga. "What did you just DO?"

"I... I don t know! I got off the can, bumped into her, and I say I m sorry, really I am... then I trip over the hem of these darned pants and bump into her again! She falls down in here, and reaches out her hand. I grab it, help her up, and then she does that weird thing with her leg, and..." Hyuuga snatched the crumpled beer can from his heel. "Who left that lying around?"

"I did. Sorry." Aoba let his guitar lie in his lap, using one hand to brace himself against the table and another to close his mouth, since those muscles didn t seem to be responding.

Maya started laughing. "That has to be the best trick I ve ever seen. Who was she?"

Hyuuga scratched the back of his head with one hand as he used the other to right the planter that the strange woman had knocked over on her way out. "Frankly, I have no idea... hold on a second... where s my wig?"

Tarou moved swiftly, from pose to pose to pose, letting the anger fuel his motions, clearing his mind. It would have been quite effective, if he didn t keep on putting new anger there. How could she have said that? HOW? The name wasn t the man. The name wasn t the man. He punched, seeing the hated Happosai s face in the instant before every blow landed, pulverizing part of the elevator housing. Every third or fourth punch, he saw Asuka s face instead.

The name wasn t the man. Just because he d been saddled with a cruel name by a half-addled pervert who didn t know any better, and was too perverse to change it willingly, it didn t make it true. He hated how people assumed that it would be true, though.

A voice flashed through his head. "But a name? HOW can that be funny?" He pulled his punch, letting the stone cool his knuckles, and stopped moving. It wasn t the truth. SHE D known that it wasn t the truth, at least. She d KNOWN. HE knew, but she d known too.

He started at a scream from below, changing from a high feminine pitch to an unearthly yowling screech. He was familiar with that particular yowl... he peered over the eaves, not conscious of having moved, and scanned the street.

There... and he clutched his sides as he sat down and laughed, laughed until tears spilled down his face, at the sight of a purple cat limping away from the building with a ghastly blond wig attached to its jewelry.

Akane heard the knock on her door through a tunnel of deafness. It had been LOUD in that little apartment, even in the one without the stereo system. "Come in." She had to repeat herself twice before Ranma got the message and opened the door.

"Um... I just wanted to... er..."

"Check up on me?" She favored him with a skeptical glance, and he blushed furiously. He really WAS nice, when he was trying. And good-  
looking. And... she felt herself begin to blush, and she looked away from him. "I m fine, thanks."

"That s not... oh, man." Ranma came the rest of the way in, closing the door behind him, and sat down on the bed. She turned the chair of her desk around, and watched him shift uncomfortably.

"Well, then, WHAT?"

Ranma grimaced. "You know I m no good at this..."

She narrowed her eyes. "What did you do this time?"

"NO! Really, I... heck with it! Here." He grabbed something out of his pocket and thrust it toward her, his eyes averted. "I really should have given you this a while ago, the way things are supposed to happen, but it didn t work out that way."

She grabbed the little box from his hand and pried it open... and gasped. The ring was beautiful... she slipped it onto the fourth finger of her right hand. "It s... oh, I... don t know what... Ranma..."

He looked at her hand and blushed. "Um... it goes on the other hand."

She smiled sweetly at him and mouthed, "You idiot." After shifting the ring over, she got up and sat next to him on the bed, leaning against his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her. "Does this mean..."

"Yeah, I meant it." He struggled with something, his face screwing itself up in the most hideous fashion... then smoothed out again. "I love you, Akane. I want to marry you."

"Oh... Ranma..." He d said it... well, again, as he d said the same thing the LAST time he d brought the subject up, but she didn t feel like arguing over his lack of creativity.

"Even though you hit me over the head in front of Mom..."

She gripped his neck for a second, then let her arms drop into a hug. Every time she could wonder if he had been replaced by somebody else, he would do or say something stupid to reassure her. It didn t matter. She rolled her eyes at the ceiling, expressively, and said, "Oh, Ranma..." in a completely different tone of voice.

"Have fun at the party?" Gendo blinked back his fatigue. It was two in the morning, sure, but he could always sleep later. Besides, if he failed here, missed sleep would cease to be a problem altogether.

"You should have been there. Her son is... an interesting fellow."

"And Dr. Akagi talked with you about what she saw?"

Fuyutsuki shook his head. "She was completely drunk. Ibuki knows, though, and explained it to me."

"It is of no consequence. Have you notified the Second Branch yet?"

"Yes, and they re raising hell over it. Damned territorial Americans. I expect that they d change their tune if the Angels were showing up at New York instead."

"If that were happening, then their attitude would be completely justified. But it isn t, and their opposition to us is not helping things. Can you convince them?"

"Yes, given time. I don t know how quickly, though. And, of course, Seele will know the moment that we succeed."

Gendo smiled. "It cannot be helped. Do what you can to speed the transfer. We still have some time."

"If the scenario holds."

"It has not and need not." The light glinted off Gendo s glasses as he pushed them back to the bridge of his nose. "We will succeed regardless."

And I ll end part 15 here, before the WAFF kills anybody. g

As usual, comments and questions should be sent to akent .  



	16. Chapter 16

Cologne sped through the Tokyo night. Whatever had happened, had happened by now, but she could still affect the ending. Maybe. She mentally cursed Mousse for his wagging tongue, and fate for his poor choice of confidants. While she was in that mindset, she included her great grand-daughter, who seemed not to have any common sense at all. Too direct, Shampoo was.

She wasn t making good time, but that was to be expected... she used her feet to propel her from roof to roof, her staff clutched in her left hand. The right held an empty scabbard, mate to Shampoo s sword. Cologne swallowed back her gorge as she thought of the cheery, goodhearted Tendo that had handed it over... servility was an admirable trait, in MEN. And for a woman to not have understood the implications... it would truly be a waste to allow her son-in-law to mingle his blood with such debased stock.

The directions she had been given were simple enough, and led her to an apartment complex a few miles from Nerima. Going inside and confronting them directly was not an option. If Shampoo had succeeded in killing the youngest Tendo, then she would be faced with a homicidally enraged son-in-law. If she had failed, she was either subdued and humiliated, or dead, making the entire mess a moot point. Besides, it simply wasn t DONE, breaking into a mother s house to kill a potential daughter-in-  
law. If Shampoo had survived, she was going to get a strict lecture in the propriety of such things.

Cologne looked up at the side of the building, counting up and over until she came to a pair of windows, one open. Nothing was moving around inside. Obviously, whatever occurrence had happened here was over already. Unlikely that Shampoo remained in a darkened apartment. Not even son-in-law was that trusting, and his mother was doubtless formidable in her own right. She suspected that Shampoo had not been killed, either... she saw none of the cars with flashing lights, police tape, or bustle characteristic of her favorite television dramas.

A single leap carried her up the four stories to the open window. Outside, on the balcony, she noted a shattered earthen pot, still damp from the water that must have been inside. The inside of the apartment was still... television, speakers, recliner... a lot of litter, come to think of it...

Her eyes moved to the couch, for a moment not registering the presence of its occupant. A head shifted, and it sat up. Iridescent scales glittered in the dim light from the window, on his chest and back. His eyes flashed open...

She jerked herself off of the ledge, throwing her body across the street. She flashed into the gap between two buildings, narrowly missing an air conditioner out of one window. A single moment of concentration, and she buried her staff in a wall. It stopped her momentum, the ancient wood creaking in protest, and she kicked it free as she dropped to the alley below. She hadn t dared set a landing in that jump...

There had been no recognition in the youth s eyes. He had seen her, yes, but only as a darkened silhouette, and then a blurred image. For the first time in months, Cologne breathed a sigh of relief. THAT had truly been unexpected. If Shampoo had encountered Pantyhose Tarou... the incongruity struck her. There was NO reason for him to associate with Ranma OR his mother. If she d had to guess, she would have placed him in pursuit of Happosai, or perhaps tangled up somehow with NERV s machinations.

Something to ask her son-in-law later, she thought. It wasn t really a comforting thought. If Tarou had learned how to mask his presence so well, even while sleeping, it spoke of hard training. He was already a fearsome opponent, even for a warrior as skilled as her.

She started to make her way from the alley, then paused. She could hear a faint yowl, the exact noise she would expect to hear if a mangy cat had been stepped on... a quick glance down told her that she had done exactly that. It took her a moment to recognize the jumble of yellow and purple as her grand-daughter s cursed form, another to separate the huge blonde wig from Shampoo s jewelry. A veterinarian Cologne was not, despite the skills gained over a century of rural life. She didn t need that sort of skill to note some of the injuries.

"So, you DID run afoul of Tarou." Cologne clucked twice, scooping the injured cat into her arms and setting out for home. "Most foolish of you, great grand-daughter. Now I ll have to see what can be done with this mess..."

-  
Paradise Lost, part 16 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax, respectively -

"Everybody else off to school? Suckers." Tarou smirked and opened the door to the apartment.

"Hey, Tarou..."

Tarou paused at the door. "Excuse me?"

"Just wondered where you were headed..." Misato shrugged and took a gulp of beer.

As if it were any of her business. "I have a few things to do. I haven t given up on hunting him down." Tarou turned, leaning his back on the doorframe, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Oh, okay." Misato nodded to herself, the beer can following the motion. "Just be back in time for dinner. I ve got this recipe..."

Tarou made a mental note to make sure that he d be late for dinner. The thought struck him as odd. "Just out of curiosity, why do you expect to ever see me again?"

She blinked, although it could have been due to the sunlight coming through the door as easily as it could have been surprise. "My cooking isn t THAT bad, you know."

"That s not what I meant... I mean, why should I come back at all?"

"Why wouldn t you? You have some place else to stay?"

Tarou resisted the temptation to point out that he didn t particularly need one. "No, although it wouldn t be any trouble. It s your family."

"My... family? You mean Ranma?"

He nodded, sneering on hearing the name. "And his father. No offense intended, but there s some bad blood between myself and fem-boy."

"So?"

"Well, I don t particularly want to live with him. I don t want to be around him. I d be just as happy if he was hit by a large and speeding bus, preferably one with a really spiky front grille. Are you starting to get the picture here?" Tarou smiled at the mental image of Ranma s body being flung across a street.

Misato finished her beer can and flung it at him. One of his hands flashed out, catching and crumpling the metal. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Well, there s that. Except for the fact that he doesn t live here, it makes sense."

Tarou s grin fell off of his face. "Doesn t live here? Um... of course. The marriage and all."

"Yeah, there s not much point in bringing him in here, especially given that he ll be out of school in another year. Besides, I don t think Ryoga s very fond of him either, and Ryoga HAS to stay here." She snorted. "Exactly what made you think he was moving in here?"

"A stupid assumption, one I shouldn t have made. That s one less reason to leave." Tarou shook his head. "Of course, even given that fem-boy won t be coming, I doubt that pig-boy would be too happy to see me again."

"Really? I hadn t noticed."

"I think that what little mind he has available has been busy with other things... but he ll remember, sooner or later. I d hate to have to pound him into little pieces. Well, not really."

Misato leaned back in her chair. "Well, Asuka certainly seems to like having you around."

"What, strudel girl?" Tarou wasn t blushing. No, he refused to blush. Absolutely not blushing at all. Now if he could just get his cheeks to stop burning... "You re crazy. She hates me more than fem-boy does."

"Sure, sure." Tarou briefly wondered how Misato could make such a short phrase into such a suggestive comment, just by tone and inflection. "You re telling me that she has no interest in you at all? I believe you... SURE I do."

"Look, forget it, alright? Damn. Next, you ll start calling me by name too." Tarou arched his shoulders at the thought. "Look, I m going. I honestly have no idea if I ll come back here or not. If we don t see each other again, could you smack your son over the forehead for me?" Tarou smiled and turned around. "Oh, and tell Rei that she s right. She ll understand."

"Well... that s the first time that I ve ever heard you call somebody by name." Misato laughed to Tarou s back.

"Name? She d say that it doesn t matter." He walked out the open door, stretching his stride into an easy run. Three jumps took him down the stairwell, and shortly he was outside, running in the fresh air. Not very fresh, given all of the cars around, but still, it was nice.

"Hm..." Tarou mumbled under his breath as he vaulted an intersection. "Now, if I were a perverted martial arts master, where would I be this morning?"

On waking, Shampoo immediately thought that she d already made one mistake that day. Waking, that is. EVERYTHING hurt, although it wasn t nearly as bad as it had been last night in the minute or so before she d passed out. She tried to get up and couldn t; tried to flex her hand and couldn t. A quick sniff brought to mind herbal mixtures more common to her village than to Japan.

"So, you re finally awake. Impetuous of you, to try to take on Tarou alone. Impetuous," Cologne said, narrowing her eyes as she bent over Shampoo s bed, "and very, very stupid. You yourself told me about that young man."

"Pantyhose boy? Shampoo... didn t know." Last night was still hazy... there had been the apartment. A lot of people she hadn t known. And the one fighter. "No, Shampoo did not see him."

Cologne arched an eyebrow three-quarters of the way up her forehead. "You mean that son-in-law did this to you? Or..."

"Shampoo not see airen or violent girl either. Stopped by someone else."

"Not Tarou, not Ranma, not the Tendo girl... who?"

"Shampoo not know. Not tall, but blond hair. VERY skilled. Did not even hit him once." Shampoo coughed, hurting her ribs where she d hit the rail.

Cologne chuckled for a moment, then sat down on the bed. "Be that as it may... you do realize that you would have been put to death for that kind of stunt back home. As it is, they ll probably just exile you for the rest of your life." Shampoo grunted in surprise, but Cologne continued. "You entered the house of the Saotome matriarch to challenge somebody there without even SEEKING combat with the mother herself! Her only son, yet! The words "breach of etiquette" don t even begin to cover your offense, great grand-daughter."

"What... what Shampoo do now, obaasan?"

"Normally, I d hand you a knife and expect you to do the honorable thing. After all, you ve single-handedly ruined any chance you had left with son-in-law, committed the most heinous possible offense against good order under our laws, and somehow you managed to get beaten into a pulp at the same time!" Cologne threw her hands up in exasperation, her voice almost shouting. "Quite frankly, at this point I m just a bit glad that you won t get to reproduce!"

Shampoo half-curled under the sheet, the pain preventing her from taking a fetal position. "You... you say normally . This not normal?"

Cologne didn t answer for a second, then calmed herself. The struggle for control must have been purely internal, as no sign of her anger touched her voice or her face. It was to be expected of a matriarch, but... "No, this is most definitely not normal. Your situation before had only come up a few dozen times in my lifetime, and in most of those cases, the man in question was deliriously happy to marry one of us. So, you see, you were already an exception.

"Combining it with this, though... not only have I not SEEN such a mess, I have not once HEARD of one, nor read about it in the tribe s records. I congratulate you, great grand-daughter... you have managed to create a unique situation after three thousand years of Chinese Amazon history." Cologne took a deep breath. "I advise you to sleep for now; if you need a potion for the pain, I ll see what I can whip up. Don t worry, I ll go talk to Mrs. Saotome this afternoon. Perhaps she won t ask that I tear your heart out and feed it to her herds."

Shampoo inhaled sharply, wincing at the pain. "Tear your heart... out..."

Cologne winked. "Just a joke, dear. That only happens if you had succeeded. Not that she d have any herds anyway..."

The teacher bounced a piece of chalk off of Ryoga s head. "Wake up, there! How can you learn to appreciate the sacrifices of your elders if you re asleep during the lecture!"

Asuka snickered as Ryoga failed to notice. Nor did he notice the eraser, the teacher s edition of the history textbook, or the wooden pointer that the enraged sensei broke over the lost boy s head. As he returned to the front desk, reaching for a decanter of water, Asuka typed a quick message into her desk terminal.

To: Kensuke

Subject: Wake up call

Content: As funny as that would be, I think we d better wake him up now...

She looked over at Kensuke, who blinked, shrugged, and started pounding at his keyboard. Five seconds later, Ryoga s terminal shrieked, like a fire alarm being tortured to death run through the amplification system at a Disaster Area concert... directly into his ear.

"WHAAWHAAAAAA!" Ryoga bolted upright, quickly enough to send splinters from the shattered pointer into the ceiling. He looked around the classroom, eyes wide and chest heaving with an adrenaline rush. "Ah... ahh... um..."

The teacher smirked. "Good to see you re still with the living, Hibiki-  
kun. Another second and I d have had to soak you with this, you know."

"Yessir. Sorry sir. Won t happen again, sir." Ryoga bowed from his desk, his head nearly touching the surface. "I m wide awake now, sir."

"Oh good. Then I don t suppose you d mind reading the next passage?"

Ryoga shot Kensuke a dirty look... hey! The fink was pointing straight at her! What kind of stool pigeon was he, anyway?

Misato pulled the car into her parking spot and headed up the stairs. She had a couple of hours to kill before she had to return for the kids synch test, and she intended to spend them both away from the rest of humanity. She briefly wondered if she d ever been as much of a pain in the butt to Ritsuko as the scientist was being to her now. She d nearly have a fit if she heard something drop off a desk. Any more, and Misato would formally request that she be given a few days off to sort through things.

Not that Ritsuko would get it, of course. After all, they d be in a world of hurt against the Angels if they didn t have her technical genius handy. Even if she didn t tell Misato everything that she should have been telling in the first place.

Misato punched the key pad five times, opening the door to her apartment. It was still relatively clean from the party... after all, few people could stand the amount of clutter that Misato considered normal, and at the few social functions that she hosted here, her guests would usually take it upon themselves to do a little tidying. No problem, really, it d get properly messy again soon enough... she noticed the open window to the room. A second later, she noticed the form in that window...

"Good afternoon, honored Saotome. May I enter?"

Misato s right hand went into her jacket as she looked over her visitor. Old, that s what she was. Short, shrunken, wrinkled as the face of a pug. For all that she looked like she d been in a grave for a hundred years, though, she stood up straight. There was some kind of stick in her right hand, not lifted in any kind of threatening way. "Who are you?"

The old woman grinned. "Don t mind me, I ve only come to talk with you, honored Saotome. No need to draw your silly toy. I am Cologne."

"Quit calling me that." Misato removed her hand from the hilt of her pistol and moved into the kitchen. She grabbed four beers, then remembered her guest and stacked another two on top of them. She returned to the living room and sat down, heavily, in the recliner. "And yes, you might as well come in already. Beer?"

"Um, no, thank you, honored Saotome." Cologne bounced off of the window sill - there wasn t really any other word to describe the motion - and perched on the arm of the couch.

"Don t CALL ME THAT!" Misato hadn t meant to shout, but it came out rather more forceful than she had intended.

"You ARE the mother of Ranma Saotome, correct?" Cologne s eyes narrowed.

Ranma s mother? Yes, but... "Oh!" Misato laughed. "Yes. My NAME is Misato Katsuragi."

"Ah yes." Cologne sank back into the cushion on the couch. "On occasion, we also have the need to rid ourselves of troublesome or useless husbands. I had simply assumed that he had taken your name, as it is done in my homeland."

"You assume much, Cologne." Misato opened and drank one beer, without stopping for breath.

"I assume nothing. I have met Genma, and my impression cannot be conveyed in polite company. The man is..."

Misato cut her off. "I know damned well about that piece of... well, if I ever see him again, I ll strangle him and leave the body out for dogs."

"Heh. If I see the unfortunate coward again, I shall relay this to him for you."

"You have me at an advantage." Misato was hardly used to the formal atmosphere of the conversation, but found herself falling into step with the old woman s speech patterns.

"My apologies. I had assumed that my son-in-law... excuse my presumption. That Ranma had already informed you."

"You re Akane s mother?!" Misato s eyes bugged out. "But... you re a hundred years old!"

"No, I am actually one hundred and nineteen years of age. And not a Tendo." Cologne chuckled, dry as dead leaves. "It is merely a term of affection; I am the great-grandmother of Shampoo, who you may have met yesterday."

"Shampoo? Purple hair, long, not much for conversation?"

The chuckle repeated itself. "The very one."

"Yes, she broke in and Hyuuga threw her out. Not that I really expected him to..." Misato almost choked on her beer as the withered Cologne bent almost double, her forehead brushing the bottom of her robe.

She straightened out again. "I apologize for her inexcusable intrusion. If you wish to deal with her yourself..."

"Nah, forget about it. We got the door fixed this morning, and it s not like she stayed long... exactly why was she here, though?"

"Really? You didn t know?" Cologne s eyes, which took up almost half of her face, blinked twice. "She was attempting to kill Akane Tendo, to prevent her marriage to your son."

"Oh." Misato finished her second beer. "I don t think he d like that. I don t think I like that either."

"If you request, there will be no further attempts. After all, it just wouldn t do."

"No, really, please. Um, sure. I, uh, so request."

Cologne nodded. "That s it? You don t want her drawn and quartered?"

"Huh? No! Jeez, where are you people from?"

"An ancient village of Chinese Amazons, actually. Well, if that s all... I must confess to some curiosity. What is Pantyhose Tarou doing here?"

"Tarou? He s... just crashing, really. Looking for some old pervert."

Cologne almost snarled at that, her lip curling in contempt. "Happosai. I wish him success, but it won t be nearly enough... that plague on humanity has as much experience as I, and he s just a bit more evil."

"Ah heh. Well."

"Yes, quite. I m surprised he didn t finish Shampoo off himself... there s no love lost between those two."

"Um, I think he was up on the roof then, and most everybody else was in the other room." Misato gestured towards the other apartment.

"Other..." Cologne s glance followed Misato s finger down the hallway. "I must say, that hole is very much like the blast from a bakusai tenketsu attack."

"So, that s what you call that. Yeah, Ryoga did that a couple weeks ago, I ve been meaning to do something about the edges... what?"

Cologne s eyes popped fully open. "Ryoga? HIBIKI? Lost boy, bandanas..." She swallowed. "Robot pilot?"

"You didn t know, huh? Maybe I should introduce myself a bit better." Misato grinned. "I m the Operations Director at NERV."

"I should have expected that the son would favor the mother, especially in this case. Well! Who would have thought." Cologne stretched, the joints in her arms popping like firecrackers. "I take it that the young man didn t become too distraught? His depression can be... rather spectacular."

"I don t think he knew that she was here."

"I ve certainly taken up enough of your time, then... what did you say his name was? The young man that stopped my great grand-daughter? He IS young, right?"

"Who, Hyuuga? Yeah. Makoto Hyuuga. He s one of the staff at NERV..." Misato paused. She would have sworn that the old woman had a predatory gleam in her eyes upon hearing the name. "Though, to be honest, I think he was as surprised as anybody else."

"Yes. I see... Thank you for your hospitality, honored Sao... er, Katsuragi. I may visit you again." With that parting, the woman shot from her seat to the window, and again to the roof of the adjoining apartment building.

"Yes, yes, what is it, Misato? You KNOW I m busy getting ready for the test..." Ritsuko slumped down to a chair. The stress was starting to get to her. She d nearly run screaming from the sound of her cellular phone.

\"Doesn t matter, Rit-chan. You HAVE to hear about this... I just had the weirdest conversation of my life."/

"Weirder than the one with Kaji about the Biblical origin of the automobile?"

\"Much weirder."/

"I m listening."

Ryoga winced. He really didn t like the concept of the decontamination shower in the first place; what could possibly be so clean that you had to be washed off with a high-pressure blast, several times, just to go in? It should have been relaxing, it should have been a nice massage, but all it managed to be was annoying. Perhaps if there wasn t a spigot at eye level on all four sides of the stall...

He chuckled to himself softly. At least it was warm water.

Ritsuko s voice came over the intercom. \"Okay, everybody, into the entry plugs."/

To his right, Ryoga heard Asuka s shout. "Whaaaat? You mean... naked?"

\"Exactly. We think that this type of connection will be able to raise your synch ratios by five or six points, without you having to actually DO anything."/

"But... I M not going out in front of THAT pervert!" Not likely that Asuka was referring to Rei, was it? Ryoga turned to his right, opening his mouth to reply... whoa. The frosted glass of the shower stall hid, well, not much at all. He yanked his gaze forward and ducked his head, trying frantically to forestall a nosebleed.

\"Don t worry. We DO respect your privacy, after all. I ve already turned off the cameras to this part of the complex."/

Asuka s voice was low, more growl than human speech. "Ryoga, if you look at me ONCE, I swear, I ll kill you so badly they won t be able to find all of the parts!"

"Um... ah..." That could be a problem. Despite his devotion to Akane, battered as it was, Ryoga seriously doubted that he could make it from one end of the hallway to the other without seeing either of his fellow pilots once. Not that he wanted to look, of course. After all, he d seen Ranma in the nude on several occasions. The thought was enough to exterminate the last shreds of his libido, freeing him for constructive thought.

"Asuka? Don t worry about it. I think this will really work."

Misato spit a mouthful of coffee back into her mug. "What is THAT?"

"It appears that somebody needs to remind Ryoga about the definition of clothing. Soon." Ritsuko held her forehead in one hand as she stared at the monitor in front of her. It held the unlikely image of one Ryoga Hibiki, wandering blindly down the hallway, with a bandana pulled down over his eyes and another two or three twisted into an impromptu loincloth.

"You know, Misato..."

"Yeah?"

Ritsuko sighed. "He looks pretty good in that." Misato dropped her mug, splashing a few ounces of coffee on a stack of supply requisition forms, and fell to the ground laughing.

"I... I..." She regained some measure of control. "I thought that you said that men were all pigs."

"Did I?" Ritsuko rolled her eyes.

Aoba tapped furiously at his terminal, fingers flying over the keys in frantic haste. Only one more minute, and he would have reached the ninth level of the dungeon. He loved synch tests. The regulations said that all bridge technicians had to be on station, but without any actual Eva to keep track of, Aoba was really a fifth wheel on the staff. Hyuuga and Ibuki got stuck with all of the real work.

Ritsuko frowned and paced from her station to stand over Ibuki s shoulder. "Well?"

"There s a difference, but it s not really all that much. Maybe a fifth of a point." Maya leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "I don t get it."

Hyuuga piped up from the technical console. "All three pilots normal. Ever since we fixed that feedback error on Asuka s simulation Eva, there s been nothing special going on."

"Another five minutes and we ll pack it in." Ritsuko leaned over and checked Maya s monitor. "This is odd. There s a temperature variation over that section of wall..."

Aoba hit the "boss key" and zoomed a camera in to inspect. "It looks like... corrosion."

"Corrosion... did ANYBODY get around to fixing that moldy wall sample we found in the 82nd protein layer last week?"

"Checking... No, it s on the work schedule for tomorrow." Hyuuga looked at Ritsuko. "Should we stop the test?"

Ritsuko snorted. "What, do YOU want to be the one who tells Hibiki that we broke off an important test because we were worried about some rust? He d rip you apart."

Maya nodded to herself, absorbed in her own station. "The variation is increasing... it s... getting hotter. Spreading..."

Aoba had seen a time-lapse picture, once, of a sheet of iron left under a plant mister for two days. Whatever was happening to the wall of the test chamber, right now, looked exactly like that. Well, the... stuff looked much more green and blue than reddish-brown, but the spreading effect was the same.

"Deploy the polysomes, NOW. Clear it off the wall." Ritsuko s voice had lost the tired-end-of-shift tone and had assumed the obey-or-we-all-die quality it usually held. "Ready?"

Hyuuga nodded. "Laser firing."

The squat polysomes, small drones created specifically to prevent things like this, were armed with a blue-green five-hundred-kilowatt laser cannon. Ridiculously overequipped, for something intended to clean algae off of a tank wall. Better that than to take chances, the designers had thought.

The first burst lit up the inside of the murky tank, throwing highlights over the three simulation Eva bodies. A section of growth disappeared in an actinic flare, as water steamed from contact with red-hot metal... the flare distorted weakly, and then the laser refracted, redirected by a hexagonal array of glowing force.

Aoba turned to his screen. The designers had also thoughtfully created a nice override into the operating system used by the Magi, giving maximum priority to the detection and response of the Angels. Aoba s ninth-level barbarian warrior vanished, replaced by just such an override. "That s an AT Field!"

A wail cut in over the communications link with the pilots. It took Aoba a moment to register the voice as Rei s, another to recover from the shock, and a third to notice the convulsions of her faux Eva. \"It s... there s something..."/ The words were lost in a shriek.

Ritsuko s face hardened. "Get them out of there, now!" Maya reached down, flipping a red-striped protective panel back from next to her knee, and pulled a lever. Instantly, the backs of the three Eva simulation bodies explodes as their entry plugs shot free, passing through a blast door on their way to the Geofront s lake.

"It would seem that it has begun."

"Quite." Gendo rested his elbows on the desk, white-gloved hands folded at his chin.

Fuyutsuki leaned up against the wall of the office. "You know, the scenario calls for you to be elsewhere right now." Gendo nodded, and Fuyutsuki left the room.

Obliquely, he had reminded Gendo that the same scenario called for him to be present at the tests. Gendo laughed, bitterly. The scenario had already been shown to be flawed; his presence or absence now would be irrelevant.

Of course, he was still pretending to follow the scenario, so that Fuyutsuki wouldn t panic. After all, it s much easier for your subordinates to perform at one hundred percent if they really believe that they are assured of success. It was unfortunate that he was constrained from using that method with the pilots. That opened its own can of worms, but given the unpredictable and horrifying nature of their enemy, Gendo doubted that he would find overconfidence to be a problem.

It was just a side benefit, anyway. He HAD to appear to be following the scenario, flaws and all. The scenario was SEELE s creation, a step-  
by-step plan detailing their operations. Too bad, really. It would have been pathetically easy for him to derail the stated scenario. Now, he was left to improvisation and chance.

There WAS another downside. If the scenario was already broken, then so were its assurances of success. He couldn t afford to leave it to chance, this time.

Ryoga drained the LCL from the entry plug. Whatever had gone wrong, he wasn t going to worry about it. He had his own problems now... the first one being, how could he get anywhere with no clothes on?

The plug, emptied of its fluid, was floating in something. He found the escape hatch, paused for a second. Yeah, it was on top. While turning into a pig would solve one of his problems, it would open a host of other problems. Ryoga blew the hatch.

Yeah, there was a lake outside. He looked up at the orange-bright glare of the Geofront s lighting. Rather pretty, really. Nobody had bothered to tell him what was going on, as usual, but it was fairly easy to assume that the other two plugs in the water contained Asuka and Rei. The hatch made a fine paddle, so long as he was careful to avoid splashing himself, and he made good time getting to the other plugs.

The first one had a large "02" stenciled on it, making it much more than likely that Asuka was still alive. He reached out, placing a hand on the rescue hatch, and tugged. The metal tore free, and... he turned to see a hand flying toward his face. "You PERVERT! Get away from here!" He winced, realizing that she d be hurt much more than him, but he didn t want to tick her off even more...

The realization hit him an instant before Asuka s hand covered his eyes. She wasn t... she was... um... he felt his cheeks burning as he turned his back, jerky as a puppet. "I... uh..." He loosened a bandana and held it out behind him, relieved not to have accidentally brushed or hit anything. "Um... here!"

Asuka snorted, snatching the bandana from his hand. "Oh, great. You better have washed this thing recently. Here, gimme another."

Another? Oh, yeah, right. He unwound a second one, passing it to her without looking. For some reason, Ryoga couldn t seem to think straight; he should have realized that one bandana wouldn t be nearly big enough for... no, no, don t think about it, Ryoga, just wait until she s done...

"Okay, you can look now..." Ryoga turned around, and saw Asuka s head peeking out of the hatch of her plug. "I know what you were thinking. Don t try anything out here, or we ll have ham tonight."

"I m sorry, I didn t... um... never mind." He pointed toward the other plug. "Uh... shouldn t we get Rei?"

"Sure, let s... ack!" Asuka waved her arms in front of Ryoga s face, blocking his view. "Don t look! Don t look!" She twisted, shouting in the direction of Rei s plug. "Y...y... what do you think you re DOING, Wonder Girl?"

OH. Ryoga sat down, bringing his line of sight below the hatch of his plug. Outside, he heard Rei reply, "Swimming. The crews can recover the plugs later."

"But you re... not wearing anything!" Asuka s voice was full of shock, with a small dash of... something. Ryoga couldn t place it.

"Yes."

"But that s... indecent! Really!"

Rei sounded puzzled. "It is? Why?"

"It just is, all right? Hey, porker! Pass a couple of those things up here. And DON T you DARE look!"

After a minute or two, long enough to get Rei clothed (barely, and Ryoga still averted his eyes from the two girls) and aboard Asuka s plug, he proceeded to row/push the plugs to shore.

"This is great. Look at me. I m a fashion nightmare." Asuka turned, noticing Ryoga s glance. "No, don t LOOK at me! Geez! Couldn t you at least have some decent bandanas? Or do they all look like this?"

"They re all the same." Ryoga felt like muttering under his breath. It s not like they were INTENDED to be used as swimwear, after all. Besides, his mom had made them for him.

Ritsuko wasn t breathing.

Well, that was not technically correct. She WAS breathing; she was not, however, cognizant of the fact. Nor, at the moment, could she possibly have cared.

In all sorts of physical endeavors, the participants widely acknowledge the existence of a special state of awareness. Martial artists call it inner peace; basketball players refer to it as "the zone". Whatever the name, it refers to the same condition; physical action without thought, mental resources free to operate at full capacity, moving and reacting while time seems to slow and tunnel. It is the ultimate in concentration, and allows for feats that seem inhuman.

Ritsuko was not a martial artist, or a basketball player. In fact, she was not much for any kind of physical exertion. While she was an accomplished scuba diver, she practiced it almost exclusively in the Eva cages, inspecting her charges. She d played a bit of croquet in high school, as well. Nothing high-impact, at all.

Still, though, if computer programming was a physical event, then Ritsuko had entered her zone.

The Angel had suborned the three simulation bodies, then used their links to invade the MAGI computer networks. Doubtless, it wanted to scan the files therein. Perhaps, it would use the defense or self-  
destruct function to send the entire complex to kingdom come, as it were.

Ritsuko shifted the defensive patterns, scrambling the signals yet again... for three minutes, she d managed to stall the Angel s intrusion, preventing it from making contact with Melchior, the first of the supercomputers that controlled the entire NERV operation. It could learn, the Angel. It learned and used its new knowledge ruthlessly. Software encryption, dummy entries, firewalls, none of the standard defenses were worth mentioning now. Ritsuko frantically shifted from one protocol to another, changing to her fifth one-hundred-twenty-eight bit coding key. She had designed the anti-intrusion measures herself, then gone back and ridiculously overdesigned them, and then doubled the whole works. It was a good thing... as it was, the Angel had already suborned the first four, and she had only one more key prepared. If it managed all six, then it would be in the computer banks no matter HOW fast she could respond.

Thoughts fluttered outside the programming language. It learned and remembered, all right. Twice, she had barely managed to spot her own pattern, shifting it just before the Angel exploited the weaknesses. A third time, it had found the pattern first, Ritsuko unconsciously repeating an earlier defensive swirl of data, and bludgeoned its way further in. She was imaginative, she was intelligent, and she was going to lose this. Even without a mistake, it would only take another four minutes for it to finish off both the current key and the reserved sixth key.

Ritsuko felt eyes on her. Without looking up, she knew the expressions: Aoba, his jaw hanging as he tried to follow her hands on the keyboard, their speed almost blurring the eye. Hyuuga, just sitting there looking, and his face full of the pain he would be feeling, the inability to help. Ibuki, her face a mixture of wonder and adulation, a student watching the master at work.

Her mind, the small part not busy holding the Angel at bay, wondered at her next move. From inside one of the MAGI, it would theoretically be possible to manipulate the data directly, without the cumbersome command protocols... that might offset the natural speed and power advantage of the Angel. Even without all three MAGI, she still had a chance...

Ritsuko felt it happen before it did. A stumble, a slip, a "g" pressed when "h" was needed, and the Angel was on the key, unraveling it in a display of sheer processing power that would have made Ritsuko weep with envy, another day, when she wasn t about to die. She snarled, mentally, and fell back to the final key...

The display went blank. For a moment, the lights did as well, before backup generators kicked in. Her terminal resumed, and the flow of data continued across the screen...

No Angel. It was gone...

"Akagi-san! Look!" Aoba gestured, waving at his command console, at a picture of the Eva simulation bodies. The distinctive printed circuitry pattern wavered, blurred, and exploded in a mad cacophony of red and gold shifts. For a week afterwards, she would swear that, in the maelstrom of its death agonies, Ritsuko perceived an image... of a hand, with a single, upraised middle finger...

Fuyutsuki caught up with Gendo in the hallway. "The situation..."

Gendo nodded, clearly impatient with the formalities. "Has been rectified, I know. Issue a public denial of the events, and then seal every record you can find. The results must remain confidential."

Yes, of course. He d have done that, even without the orders. "You should have seen her, Hibiki-san. Akagi was... impressive. It was a close thing, though..."

"Not nearly as close as the scenario." Gendo smiled. Smiling? At the thought of a flaw in the scenario? Sure, he d been a bit... different... over the last few days, but this?

"I m still not sure exactly what happened. The timing seemed rather fortuitous." Fuyutsuki shrugged. Puzzlement and concealment, you eventually got used to them around this man. "You didn t..."

Gendo s facial expression changed again, to one completely unknown to the aged professor. Whatever it meant, it had none of the steel of his ordinary mien. "I had trouble finding it, of course." As soon as it had come, the expression faded, leaving behind the ordinary mask of resolve. "Contact me in the morning, and we ll start the damage control."

That was Gendo s way of telling him that he should, quietly of course, bug off for the night. Naturally, it was a spectacularly bad idea, and Gendo would likely end up in the Ozarks before they caught up to him, but how could you say that to the man s face? Fuyutsuki grunted his assent and turned down a side corridor, headed for an elevator.

Gendo lay on his back, resting in the grass, and sighed. The stars were beautiful... of course, it had been late at night and more before he d made his way free of the Geofront, and he seriously doubted that he d managed to get more than a mile away from the city before he d tired. Funny, that. Gendo remembered a time when traveling did not tire him, when he could wander for days between camps. A time long past, though.

The business tonight had been closer than he had wanted to risk, far closer than he preferred to risk. It was amazing that Ritsuko had held up for as long as it had taken, with him sprinting down hallways and corridors. He had almost passed the main cable junction between the Pribnow Box and the main trunks leading to the MAGI before he had noticed. Compared to the time spent finding the thing, it had taken only moments to reduce it to a broken pile of electronic parts, and the cable itself severed easily enough. They would find the fire ax buried there in the morning, still hanging out of the wall.

It had almost taken too long. The curse, that was why, of course. Gendo breathed deeply, attempting to impose a calm that he did not feel. It didn t do any good to rail against his fate. Nothing productive could be gained from memories of a wife long lost, a family he hadn t known in a decade or more. A family he couldn t possibly be bothered with now.

Gendo lay, in the grass, in the dark, under the stars, and recalled those memories. For a long time.

"Fancy meeting you here."

The voice, dry as old sandpaper, startled Gendo out of his pleasant reverie. It was the Joketsuzoku, the one from the diner and the other day, the one that knew his son. He didn t really feel like having a conversation... but he had few such opportunities. "Should it be?"

The withered thing sat, only lowering its eye level by six inches, and gazed at his supine form. "Not particularly. After all, the Hibiki wanderlust is legendary for a good reason. It was merely the fortuitous timing."

"Fortuitous, is it?" Gendo smirked. "That means that you have some kind of request, or other. I can t recall any other reason that you would want to find me."

"Am I that transparent?" The old woman barked out a laugh, dry leaves crackling in fire. "No, I suspect that I will not need your assistance in my endeavor."

"Then why stop here? It s late, we re in the middle of nowhere..."

"This is Central Park, you fool."

Gendo blinked. Come to think of it, the landmarks DID seem remarkably familiar. Regardless, he didn t let the interruption stop him. "And I have had a full and busy day."

"Don t we all." The Joketsuzoku matriarch... her name was Cologne, wasn t it? She sighed, quietly. "I suppose all that I really need is a person to tell. Since you know a few of the interested parties... and you re here... and I sincerely doubt that you will flap your mouth..." That last, her eyes had lit with an inner fire while speaking it.

The accusation took a moment to sink in to Gendo s fatigued consciousness. A small moment. Then, the utter incongruity of the charge left him laughing, holding his sides to keep them from splitting with the humor. He gathered himself back, falling limply against the lawn. "I suspect that my discretion will be MORE than adequate."

"Good. You ought to teach that skill to that wastrel son of yours; he has a tongue and no brain, at times. This... are you familiar with our tribal customs?"

Gendo nodded, then qualified the nod. "I have some understanding, although it s as much hearsay as experience."

Cologne waved one arm, dismissing it impatiently. "The marriage custom, surely you have heard of that!"

"Of course. What would be of more import to a lone male traveler..." Gendo s breath became a hiss. "You don t mean that Ryoga..."

"Settle down! I never met your boy before coming here. This has to do with my great-granddaughter, and a boy by the name of Ranma Saotome."

"Katsuragi s lost child." Gendo rolled his eyes before returning them to the heavens. "Go on."

"Lost? She found him a week ago. For a man in your position..."

Gendo s fist tightened, tearing grass from its roots. "Go on, I said."

"Very well. Over a year ago, the young Saotome entered my village, accompanied by his tramp father. There, he defeated my Shampoo in hand-  
to-hand combat. There was... some confusion..."

Gendo took the Joketsuzoku name in stride. "I am surprised at that. One would think that you, old as you are, would have the drill down well by now."

"It s not that easy!" Cologne let out an exasperated sigh. "Both father and son were under the effects of a Jusenkyo curse at the time." Curse? JUSENKYO curse! Gendo s mouth opened into a wide grin, and he hastily coughed, trying to hide his rising glee. Misato s child had managed to become afflicted with a Jusenkyo curse, now? "Are you listening to me, you brainless directionally-challenged fool?"

"Oh, er, yes. Keep going."

"Well. Once we had that sorted out, Shampoo set out to wed him. I, of course, assisted her in any way that I could."

"Naturally." Gendo allowed himself a small chuckle.

"And that has gone on for a year now."

Gendo whistled. Well, puckered his lips slightly and made a noise that sounded something like a whistle, anyway. "And he s lasted for a year? Are you sure he s not gay?"

"Don t teach your grandmother to suck eggs, boy. That was one of the first things we tried." Gendo honestly found himself unable to recall the last time that he had been referred to as a "boy". Of course, compared to this woman, he WAS a boy. "He s just managed to get himself into a marital tangle that I won t bother with. He is resolving it, though."

"Marrying your Shampoo?"

"Marrying one of the others." Gendo s eyebrows quirked once at the mention of "others", and again at Cologne s frank admission of defeat. "And, to be more than honest, I m sick of the whole ordeal. He s not going to marry my great-granddaughter unless we tie him up and move him to China in his sleep, and that s not an option."

"Really? I thought that you... people... didn t balk at such things in the past."

He felt a rushing, a breeze, and then the impact of hardened wood against his forehead. Half twisting around in the grass, he regarded Cologne, but noticed no change in her posture. Fast, VERY fast. "In case you hadn t noticed, boy, I am OLD. I can beat him... now... barely... sometimes. And he s still getting better, whereas I am losing more every day. No longer does the knowledge make up for the flesh. Another five years, and I will have to... give up the Art."

No question as to which Art she was referring; all Joketsuzoku practiced various styles of fighting. "A trifle, your problem."

"What s that? YOU have no worries, no regrets that you are aging, no long slide into oblivion?"

Gendo shook his head, answering (for once) completely truthfully. "I have no such problem, nor such a worry."

Cologne s grin was wry, and rather hideous, considering the frame. "Of course you don t." Her tone was patronizing, with a touch of something else. "At any rate, I d just as soon be rid of him, and better for it. What I need... what I needed... was a pretext." Gendo nodded. "Some reason to break it off, something I could use for my own ends."

"And?"

Cologne inhaled, the action doing nothing whatsoever for her appearance. "Last night, my great-granddaughter provided one. She attempted to take matters into her own hands."

"I almost feel sorry for the winning girl in that..."

"Don t; she s homely and violent to boot. Heaven knows why it was HER. I always had my money on the okonomiyaki chef. Anyway, she was intercepted on the way... by one of your employees."

Cologne s plan flashed into Gendo s mind, as clear as if she d spent an hour explaining it. "I don t think that Kaji will be overjoyed at the prospect. Besides, poaching on Misato still involves you with this Ranma."

"Kaji?"

"Yes. Ryoji Kaji. Doubtless Shampoo s attracted to him too, but..."

The old woman s voice cracked like a whip. "She said nothing of a Kaji. I need to know about Makoto Hyuuga."

"Hyuuga? He s a bridge technician. Mousy little guy. Thick Coke-bottle glasses." Wait a minute... "When you say intercepted , you mean..."

"It was euphemism for beat within an inch of her life , apparently so quickly that the others did not even notice her presence. A powerful martial artist, this Hyuuga?"

"I didn t think he had it in him." Gendo chuckled, softly, while looking up into the sky. "No, not in the least. I d have expected him to wet himself first."

"Lesson number one. You, Hibiki, are a poor judge of character."

"Granted." Well, no, not really, but it never hurt to seem more humble than he really was.

"At any rate, I filled Shampoo s head with a great deal of fantastic terrors about what a horrible thing she d done. She was never a great student of custom, and Joketsuzoku law is almost as complicated as your tax codes, so it was easy to convince her. A quick conversation with the Katsuragi woman, and everything is set."

"Why are you telling ME this?"

"Mostly because it s much less fun to be devious if you re doing it by yourself. That, and I did want to ask your permission to attach my great-granddaughter to one of your employees. After all, I would hardly want them to be... occupied... at a critical moment."

Gendo sat up in the grass. "His job is highly useful, though not absolutely critical. Just keep this Shampoo away from the office, though. Wouldn t do for her to get shot."

"No, it would not at that." Cologne faded, her sense retreating before he realized that her form was no longer before him. He lay back down in the grass, laughing quietly to himself.

"Hyuuga... I wouldn t be in your shoes." Of course, given the proper wishes, he wouldn t be in his own, either... but such was life.

-  
End of part 16

Questions, comments, and sundry go to akent


	17. Chapter 17

Misato leaned back in her recliner, blissfully relaxed. Life... was good. No Angels knocking down the city. No moody Gendo to deal with. Her stomach was full, she had a beer in hand... and the muted grumbling from the kitchen told her that she, once again, would not have to worry about dishes.

Asuka's voice rose in volume. "I still don't see why I have to do these, you know."

She didn't, did she? "Really? Aren't you the one that's always saying how smart she is?"

"Wha... what does THAT have to do with anything?"

Misato quirked an eyebrow, though the gesture would be lost on Asuka, trapped in front of a sink full of dirty dishes. "Well, Ryoga cooked dinner, so he's off the hook. Besides, given his... problem," and Misato had lost a LOT of sleep over just how that could be handled; after all, it would be damned inconvenient if Ryoga turned into a pig when they needed him, "I'd just as soon not have him in there."

"Well? What about Wonder Girl? It's not like she's worried about her hands getting wrinkled, right?"

Rei looked up from her seat on the couch, her book momentarily forgotten. She made a noise that could quite possibly be interpreted as an interrogative... if you gave her some credit.

"She did them LAST night, or did you forget already?" Upon hearing Misato's answer, Rei returned her attention to the book. Wait a minute... Misato looked more closely. Not a book at all. In fact, that was a comic book. Seconds passed as she tried to come to grips with the fact; failing in that, Misato mentally shrugged.

From the sound of clanking dishes, Misato assumed that Asuka had indeed remembered, and had decided to take her annoyance with the chore out on the glassware instead of her roommates. Just as well... nothing SHOULD get broken. Even an angry Asuka was still a perfectionist.

The outer door to the apartment opened, and somebody walked in. From the sound of the footsteps... "Tarou, if you're going to come in, shut the door! Were you raised in a barn?"

Rei blinked. "Tarou?"

"You know anybody else that would let themselves in without knocking?"

Misato heard the young man chuckling to himself. "Hovel, actually, and it didn't have air conditioning, but you've got a point." The door gave a hiss as it slid closed, and Tarou walked into the living room. His hair, normally rather loose, was plastered to his scalp, and sweat showed on his arms and stained his pants. He immediately headed for the kitchen.

Ryoga stirred; he had slumped at the foot of the couch as soon as dinner was over, curling up against a stray cushion, and had not budged since. Misato's question had been met with a muttered "sleep when you're tired..." and light snoring. Well, he deserved it; Ritsuko had really run him ragged that day, between various tests and training runs.

Tarou reappeared, greedily drinking a glass of water. Walking under the ceiling fan, he finished his drink and sprawled out on the carpet, face up. A sigh escaped his lips.

"Good day, today, Tarou?"

He didn't look at Misato, instead staring up at the ceiling, but his smile was part of his answer. "Found the pervert twice... first time, it was at a health club. I managed to chase him off... caught up with him again, outside of the girls' locker room at Furinkan. Idiot hadn't realized that there wasn't any classes going on."

That was worth a chuckle. "So, did you get him?"

"Not likely... what, like I'd come back here if he had? I DID tag him one, though. He'll be feeling it for a couple of days." Tarou snorted.  
"Just a little bit closer, and I'd have had him."

Ryoga rolled off of his cushion, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "Hey, Tarou..."

"Yeah, pig-boy?"

"Go take a shower, man. Your smell woke me up."

Tarou rapped a half-hearted knuckle off of the forehead of the other boy, and stood up. "When the pig tells you that it's time to take a bath, well, it's probably time to take a bath." Tarou walked down the hall and disappeared in the bathroom.

Misato grinned. Even though Tarou was prone to bluff and posture, and even though he picked on Ryoga incessantly, and even though something had happened between him and Asuka that neither of them were talking about... come to think of it, having Tarou around wasn't exactly all roses, the sweat notwithstanding. Still, though, he DID have a way of spicing up conversation at the dinner table.

Wait a second. Misato felt a thought moving through her head, some kind of warning that she was about to make a very important realization, the kind you get just too late to do any good. She blinked once, in an effort to speed up the process and maybe avoid disaster. And there it was...

Before she realized that she'd moved, Misato was in the kitchen, shouting at Asuka. Whatever she had said, it wasn't worrying the girl... she stopped to listen.

"What? Are you CRAZY? Of course I was using the cold water to wash the dishes." Asuka sniffed, pointedly not looking at Misato. "If that THING destroys the bathroom, then I have to share with it and Ryoga, right? The LAST thing I need is to bathe with perverts."

"Oh, okay." Some things were definitely going to take some time to get used to. "Isn't this whole thing a bit silly?"

Asuka nodded, turning back to the dishes. "You have NO idea."

-  
Paradise Lost, part 17 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Rumiko Takahashi or Gainax, respectively -

Ranma spared a moment to tug at his collar. He'd missed having a mother... he really had. No home-cooked meals. No quiet nagging to reassure him that SOMEBODY still cared. Nobody to tuck him into bed as a little boy...

Now, he was learning that there was a definite downside to the situation. Misato wasn't a warm, caring mother. She wasn't a nagging mother. She wasn't somebody that he could tell all of his secrets to, inasmuch as she knew both of the ones that mattered anyway.

What she WAS... well, Misato was rather embarrassing. She drank like a fish, flirted with every guy she saw, spent all of her time hanging around Ryoga... and PANTYHOSE, for goodness sakes. She didn't seem to know how to do "mom" things any more than he could get a handle on what "son" things he was supposed to do. And she looked entirely too good for somebody in her late thirties. One thing Ranma was sure about; Mom was NOT supposed to be "cute".

He stretched out, seeking calm in a short series of katas. They weren't working, but at least he could look like he was calm. Really, he didn't know why he kept doing this. Come to think of it, why WAS he still putting up with this? He didn't have to have tea with his mother at all. Hell, he could tell her to get out of his life and not come back. She'd even thank him for it, probably.

The door to his room opened and Akane came in. He hadn't been facing the door, hadn't turned around. As far as he could tell, he hadn't noticed a distinctive set of footsteps sounding on the floor outside his room. There wasn't any perfume for him to sniff, and quite frankly he would think twice before sniffing any in the first place. Still, though, he had no doubt that it was, indeed, Akane.

"Oh... Ranma... you're so lucky!"

He turned around, looking at Akane, and his breath caught. Yeah, she really was cute when she smiled. And that was his answer, wasn't it? Yeah. Ranma knew how much she missed her own mother, dead for so many years. For him to reject his own, to her, would seem ungrateful.

He tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Yeah, I know. Can't kill me, right?"

Akane's eyebrows quirked, and her smile became more of a wry grin. "Took you long enough to figure it out. Are you ALWAYS going to argue like that? THREE hours?"

Oh, yeah, that. He'd been trying to forget about that argument, which had started on the way back from a movie and continued through a (now-  
destroyed) public park, before ending rather unceremoniously at the bottom of the Tendo koi pond. "Akane... You have this way with words,  
you know?"

She crossed the room, reaching up to straighten his collar, and taking rather a long time with it. Just as he thought to wrap his arms around her, she stepped off, thumping her hand off his chest. "There you go... all neat. Be nice this time, okay?"

Kaji looked on as Misato turned a pirouette. She looked... stunning. He averted his eyes, trying to avoid too much stimulus. After all, she had places to go, and someone to see. Someone that wouldn't make him jealous, for that matter. Not that Kaji ever was jealous. Ever. Right.

"So, how do I look?" Misato stopped in front of Kaji, hands on hips and one knee bent, looking at him.

"You're... it's..." He realized that he was fumbling with adjectives, and decided to cut to the chase. "...perfect. WOW."

She didn't exactly giggle, but it was much closer to one than her normal laugh. "So I see. You think it'll do?"

Kaji slumped against the corridor wall. Somehow, Misato had managed to get permission to go see her kid almost every day, and nobody was worrying about the Angels for once. She seemed to delight in tormenting the poor boy. Of course, if it meant wearing dresses like THAT... "I'm all for it."

Rei frowned. Well, almost. She'd seen people frown, often enough, and thought she understood the methodology of when and why they did. For some reason, though, her attempts never quite managed to convey the same feeling. If it was the same feeling.

Today, for example. She had been reading through these books. Three days ago, Ryoga had told what she assumed was supposed to have been a joke. Unit 02's pilot thought it was funny. Rei had not understood it, though. She had said so. And Ryoga had brought her these the next day.

They weren't books, exactly. They used pictures, not just illustrations but the entire surface of the page. The only words were in dialog balloons, along with the occasional sound effect. And, when looked at in sequence, they told a story of sorts. Rei had never been much for fiction... after all, life was stranger, Gendo always said. If she could really learn humor from these, though...

So far, her efforts to do so had been a complete failure. As nearly as she could tell, "humor" had much to do with people getting embarrassed, guys scratching the back of their head, and various minor injuries. She filed these points away as perfectly consistent with her observations of the other pilots.

Rei vaguely realized that she was wasting her time reading the rest of the books, but as she was in class and ANY activity was a waste of time, that was not a problem. Listening to the lecture would not be productive, of course. She had no interest in the doings or appearance of her other classmates. In fact, in the absence of these books, she probably would have just looked out the window. Not that there was anything interesting out the window... she'd stared at the same landscape for hours, after all... but the sky was blue. For some reason, Rei LIKED blue.

Of course, none of this thought was having any effect on Ryoga. He just sat in the desk next to her, watching, as if he expected her to do something. And he wasn't affected by her frown. This was highly inconsistent with his usual behavior... one frown from 02's pilot caused him to become quite uncomfortable, in short order. "Ryoga, I'm frowning at you. Why aren't you noticing?"

"Why aren't I..." The portion of Ryoga's forehead that was visible over his bandanas wrinkled in thought. "You were FROWNING?"

Another inconsistent statement. Ryoga was perfectly capable of recognizing facial expressions. "Yes."

"Rei..." He chuckled, and scratched the back of his head. Two signals that he found the situation funny. She filed it away for later study. "You know, I couldn't tell you were frowning. Your face didn't change."

She frowned again. "Yes, it did."

"No, that's not a frown. That looks almost exactly like you ALWAYS look. Here." Ryoga squinted his eyes, drawing his face up into an incredibly exaggerated expression. His voice was slightly distorted as he said, "Can you dho THIS?"

She tried. It must be an example of a "comical expression", although what that had to do with frowning remained a mystery. She tensed muscles over her eyes, and at the corners. At the same time, she tried to draw the skin of her jaw down, lower than her mouth line. Her neck nearly spasmed from the unaccustomed strain. "Like this?"

"PERFECT. Rei, you're frowning." Ryoga gave himself a self-satisfied nod.

"Ryoga, this hurts." Rei dropped the expression.

He nodded. "Well, yeah. Don't use it too often."

Rei turned her attention back to the stack of books. She obviously had no further need for the one she had just finished, so she selected one from the middle of the pile. There was no point in sticking to the established order, as she did not believe that Ryoga had any skill along those lines. She read the title... "Futuba-kun no Change."

Five minutes later, she smiled. THIS kind of humor she could appreciate.

Ranma eased himself into the seat. They'd both managed to get to the coffee shop without incident, and maybe the public location would restrain some of her wilder impulses... well, maybe it wouldn't. He told himself to calm down. Akane had TOLD him to be nice, and for once he felt like actually DOING something that he'd been told to do.

His mother wasn't helping things. Her dress... it wasn't revealing, it wasn't low- or high-cut or anything... it was a simple red dress. Somehow, though, she WORE it in a way that had left tongues hanging out all over the city. The waiter, taking their orders, had nearly blotted out the ink on his pad with drool. Ranma had had to frown and grunt to get the guy to go away.

Nice thoughts. Happy thoughts. CALM thoughts. "So, how's it going, Mom?"

Misato leaned back, relaxing in her side of the booth. "Not bad, all things considered. You?"

That... was a very good question. "Really good, I think. I mean... nobody's trying to kill me right now. I'm getting married. I haven't been in a good fight in weeks."

Her eyebrows shot up. "That fight against Ryoga wasn't a good fight?"

"Heck no. We were just playing around. In a REAL fight, I would have pasted him." He laughed. "If it wasn't for the city being attacked every so often, I'd call this boring. Not that it's my problem..." Too late, his common sense kicked in. It WAS, in a very real way, Misato's problem, and making fun of it would just get her started.

She didn't rise to the bait. "It's a bit tiring, really. I never had any idea that it was so much work to keep track of four kids."

Four? Ranma mentally counted off. Ryoga, Rei, Asuka... Oh yeah. Tarou. Not that he was young enough to be called a kid, really. Ranma could understand why she had to take care of Ryoga, the poor guy would get lost in a room with one door, and he couldn't care less where Rei or Asuka stayed, but... "Why do you hang around with that Pantyhose creep, anyway? He's not bugging you, is he?"

"Creep?" Misato shook her head. "He's got an opinion of himself, yeah, but he's been a perfect gentleman."

"RIGHT. He's a fruit! I mean, just LOOK at him!" Ranma waved a hand across the table. "Bah. I don't care. Do what you like with him."

"You know, you two could probably take out Happosai if you worked together... Ryoga's told me a bit about him. Perverted, isn't he?"

Ranma grimaced. "And how. Um... we've tried that before, sorta. The old guy, he's slippery, it didn't work quite that way. Damn, but I wish that Pantyhose would find and get rid of the lech."

Misato smiled. "Kind of a drag, having a master that's such a pervert, huh?"

"Well, yeah..."

That wasn't a smile on Misato's face. More of a leer. "Though, I bet he taught you ALL sorts of nice tricks. FOUR fianc es? Really?"

A ball of ice formed in the pit of Ranma's stomach. "Uh..."

Her voice lowered, just short of a whisper. "So... how many of them have you scored with?"

Ranma's thought process stopped, in shock, for all of three seconds. He felt his cheeks flaming. "NONE," he hissed, in as harsh a whisper as he could manage, "thank you very much! That's not any..."

"...of my business? SURE it is. You're telling me that you didn't sleep with ANY of them?" She threw him a quizzical look. "You're straight, right?"

"Yes, I'm straight." Well, might as well get it out in the open... "It's not like that, you know."

"Oh, come on. Akane's great-looking. That okonomiyaki chef, she's pretty cute too, right? And that one that broke in? I got a look at her; you can't BUY..." he wasn't listening anymore, right? No, not at all... la la la... la la la... was she done yet? "...out to THERE! And you never once thought of..."

He had been blushing before, but THIS... he was surprised that his face didn't catch fire and burn off. Which may have been better, now that he thought of it. "Yes, all right? Hell yes, I thought about it. Who wouldn't have? But it's not like I could have just boffed any of them and that was it. I'm not that kind of guy!"

Well, really, he wasn't. Of course, it helped that Shampoo was attached to Cologne, the greatest sexual turn-off that man had ever known. Akane probably would have hammered him through the moon, if he even ASKED about that. She'd probably STILL do that, and they were engaged for real now. Kodachi... Ranma shuddered at the thought of what SHE might have liked to do in bed.

And Ukyou... well, she surely wouldn't have been violent about it. Heck, he was surprised she hadn't ever tried asking him. And more than a little relieved, too. After all, she WAS cute. And she did... had loved him. It was just... just... She wasn't Akane.

Damn. Monogamy was going to suit him. Who'd have figured? He looked up, saw the expression in Misato's eyes, and decided not to press the issue. "You get the point?"

"Okay, okay! I get it already."

The nosy waiter glided in from over Ranma's shoulder. "Your iced tea is ready." With great ceremony, he placed a glass from his tray in front of Misato.

Misato looked up at him in surprise. "Iced? We didn't order iced..."

"My apologies, but we're having some technical problems and the kitchen's power isn't ru... uh... uhhhh..." The waiter, bowing over the table, nearly fainted as his eyes followed the neckline of Misato's dress. Ranma shot out an arm, intent on teaching the pervert a lesson in not hitting on people's mothers... at the same instant that the man lost his balance.

A cold shock, a familiar wrenching sensation, and Ranma grit her teeth in disgust. This was the last thing she'd needed. "Hey!" she shouted, not caring for once that his voice had risen two registers.

The server looked at her, performed a rather snappy double take, and turned away. The clumsy oaf. Next to him, Ranma saw her mother rest her face in the palm of her hand. "Oh, isn't THIS just wonderful!" Misato jumped to her feet, gathering the waiter's collar in her hands, and started shaking. "Get us some hot water NOW, got it?"

"We don't..."

"I don't CARE if your hot water is out. Heat some. Set the place on FIRE if you have to, just get him some hot water!" Misato released the man, glaring as he fell backwards and scrabbled away. "Damn." She turned back to regard Ranma, and immediately sat down. "Hey, can't you cover that up?"

That? Um... oh. Those. "They ARE covered, MOM. Jeez. I'm not any happier about this than you are, ya know."

"I swear, if I ever get my hands on that bastard Genma again, I'm going to run him through the wringer." Misato gestured dramatically at Ranma's feminine figure. "I mean, I thought he'd manage to screw things up, but I never counted on him turning you into a cross-dresser."

"I am NOT a cross-dresser, damn it! I am a GUY." Well, not at the moment, but the fact that she LOOKED like a girl didn't mean that she was one.

"You really got screwed over at that Jusenkyo place, didn't you?" Misato shook her head. "Almost as badly as Ryoga."

ALMOST? She'd show her mother "almost". "At least HE doesn't get bugged when somebody decides they want to date him."

Wait a second... Ranma blinked, squinted. The figure who entered the shop hadn't changed. She groaned to herself. "Here it goes again..."

"PIG-TAILED GIRL!" Kuno was instantly beside the booth, kneeling and presenting a bouquet of roses. "Once again, the fates have rewarded me with your love! Come, let us date together!"

The clueless kendo practitioner looked up, seeing Misato... who had drawn away as if he were some sort of disease-ridden bug, hands firmly locked in warding position. "What IS that thing?"

Kuno's jaw fell slack as he took in Misato's outfit. Unfortunately, he managed to recover both his wits and pressed on. "Beauteous one, I regret that I am but one man, and am thus unable to grant you the boon of my devotion. For, alas, my heart and soul have already been given to this lovely flower..."

Hm. Misato looked like she was about to vomit. One advantage of Ranma's feminine form... the voice was GOOD at sarcasm. "I thought that you wanted Akane, you two-timer."

"Ah, the pure Akane Tendo! My head swims with visions of her beauty. But," and at this, Kuno struck a dramatic pose, "I am not a mere worthless sop, as is the cursed Ranma Saotome, my eternal enemy. My love is vast enough for the both of you!"

Okay, that was just about enough. Ranma stood, ignoring yet another shower of praise, and kicked Kuno through the plate glass at the front of the shop. She dusted off her hands and sat back down.

"Nice form." Misato lifted one eyebrow. "I can't believe you egg him on like that, though. Won't that hurt?"

Egg him ON? "Are you kidding? I'm not sure that Kuno could be killed. Even if you did, you'd never get him to shut up long enough for it to matter. He's one persistent jerk."

"Did you think about telling him you were really a guy?"

"A few dozen times. He just chalks it up to my 'black, sorcerous nature'  
and keeps going." Ranma shrugged. "He's annoying, but manageable."

That little bit seemed to take her off guard. "Is he some kind of idiot?"

"You heard him talking."

"I... see what you were talking about. It's too much to hope for that Genma fell in after you?"

"What, Pop? Spring of Drowned Panda. Suits him."

Misato snapped her fingers. "Well, it's not as good as pond scum, which is what HE deserves."

"Pond scum can drown?"

Misato chuckled. "I'd find a way."

Tarou whistled happily, flipping a small wrench in his hand as he walked away from the coffee shop. Amazingly fragile, the circuit breakers on these buildings. He briefly considered whether he was just being petty. After all, it wasn't as if he was GUARANTEEING that fem-  
boy would get doused in there. Just making it... er, more likely.

After all, all work and no play, right?

A minute's walk took him back into Nerima. After that, it only took seconds for him to find the plume of Happosai's latest victims. Useful, they were. Of course, he couldn't let them have the dried-up fool... not until Tarou had finished his own business, payback plus interest. He doubted that even the pervert could survive that.

Misato's jaws creaked with the first yawn of the morning. More sleep. That's what she needed... more sleep. Of course, she wasn't going to get any more sleep. Beer. If she couldn't sleep, she could at least get something to drink. Ah. A plan. She dressed absently, letting her mind wander. The room was a mess. Kind of musty, too.

Checking to make sure that she was decently garbed, she flung the window open. Really a nice morning, she thought. The morning air was cool, rather refreshing really, and spiced with the songs of several birds. A black-and-white striped ball edged over the horizon, casting rays of sunshine into the room. Heck, it even smelled cleaner than usual.

Wait... the incongruity hit Misato. Her first impulse was to find her empties from last night, count the cans, and set her drinking limit to that number, minus one. After all, there's hangovers, and then there's hallucinations. The second impulse, however, was more intelligent. "Hey, Ryoga, get in here!"

Ryoga popped his head through the doorway, studiously not actually looking AT her. Of course he'd be up and around, this early. "Um... yeah, Misato?"

She pointed at the variegated ball. "Is my horizontal hold off, or is that..."

"Huh?" His eyes traced the path of her finger. "Wow! Now THAT is one ugly blimp."

"Blimps aren't round, Ryoga. They're... um..." Misato fumbled for the correct word, missed, and decided to do it the hard way. "...stretched-  
out, sort of."

"They aren't that color, either. What do YOU think it is?"

She squinted against the glare of the sun, trying for a better look. "Probably work for us. I mean, what else could it be?"

"So... it's NOT an Angel?"

Ritsuko took a deep breath. One more time... "No, Ryoga, it's not. At least, it doesn't LOOK like one."

Asuka half-turned and stomped her foot, facing away from her fellow pilots and towards the cavernous Eva holding bay. "You could have fooled me."

"Not like that!" Ritsuko waved a sensor readout at the children. "That... um... ball doesn't have a blue pattern reading. It's weird, but orange, most of the time. Definitely NOT an Angel."

Ryoga shook his head. "I don't get this color thing. The Angels are blue, right?"

"It's not actually their COLOR, Ryoga. It's just a metaphor. We could call it chartreuse' or mung-flavored' or loud', and it'd mean the same thing." She gestured toward the Eva units. "Anyway, we need you to go give us a closer look at that thing. It doesn't seem to be reacting to stimulus, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about."

Ryoga turned to Rei. "The last time they told me that, I got shot right about here," he said, pointing directly over his sternum. "It hurt!" Rei nodded.

Ryoga nodded to himself. Next time, he would have to remember to avoid swallowing so much LCL. It gave him a bloated feeling that wasn't very comfortable, especially given that he was busy piloting a huge robot through the downtown area.

Not that there was any urgency to this operation. All three Eva were launched and told to creep up on the sphere, which had found a nice sunny spot in the middle of town and stopped. Every so often, Ryoga would spot it through a cross street. It was more like a very large optical illusion than a solid ball, in appearance.

He fingered the controls, anxiously. The left hand of 01 was clenched around the handle of some kind of sensor thingy. He hadn't followed most of Ritsuko's explanation about what it did, exactly. Misato had told him to take it out there, put it down gently where they told him to, and bring it back. Easy enough. The OTHER hand held some kind of gun. Compared to the ones he'd practiced with, it felt like a toy, even given the fact that it was still several meters long.

A quick glance took in the surroundings. This was turning out to be slow work, Ryoga thought. Advance a block. Wait and check. Drag the power cord around obstacles. Find an advertisement sign, follow Hyuuga's instructions on where to go next. Boring.

\"Okay, Ryoga, that's it. Set it down... yeah, there. Okay, hang loose for a second."/ Makoto's voice cut out, leaving silence over the link. Ryoga let himself relax, bracing the Eva's shoulders against a nearby arms tower. At least this one didn't shoot at him. In fact, the pattern on it was kind of interesting, how it seemed to flow over its surface...

The pattern resolved. Ryoga blinked, once, and nearly scrubbed the Eva's free hand across its eyes. He really hoped that he wasn't imagining things. A stab of his finger opened up an intercom. "Asuka... what does that thing look like?"

\"What do you think, idiot...? Oh."/

Rei's voice sounded worried. Well, it sounded quiet, but worried for her, Ryoga supposed... \"Black and white concentric circles..."/

"Bulls-eye." Ryoga looked around the cockpit. No clues as to WHY it would have done that...

\"The bastard's taunting us."/ Asuka's face, a tiny figure in his comm window, settled into a dark mask. \"It's like it's daring us to shoot it or something."/

Ryoga nodded. "You two close enough?"

\"I'm hung up over here. Gimme a second to change cords."/

\"I will be in position in twenty seconds."/

"Screw it." Ryoga raised his right hand, gripping the firing controls, and the Eva extended its arm. Not much point in waiting, really. If it WAS an Angel, and this thing could hurt it, they'd know from one bullet as easy as three. Besides, if it was like that triangle one, he couldn't let it shoot at Asuka or Rei. He tried not to think about what that entailed as he squeezed the trigger.

\"Screw it."/ Rei blinked, once. She didn't understand the metaphor, although his tone of voice was quite clear. Exasperation, mixed with boredom and puzzlement. Ryoga was quite likely to soon do something very, very stupid.

She paused to reflect; it was almost always quite likely that he would do something stupid, given his education and personality. THIS particular stupid thing would likely fall under the category of things they had been told expressly not to do, like actually firing at the not-Angel. Thus, she was not exactly surprised to hear the sound of gunfire coming from Ryoga's position.

The effect, though, was strange. The bullet, instead of deflecting off of a familiar hexagonal atmospheric distortion, passed completely through the sphere. The surface began to ripple, slowly, as if a heavy object had been dropped into a viscous liquid. The wave spread from the point of impact, seeming to rebound off of the opposite side. On its return pass, it... distorted the ring pattern facing Ryoga, the white and black circles forming spirals that swirled in on each other...

Whatever it was about to do, it wasn't GOOD. Rei dropped her Eva's electronics pack, ignoring the damage done to the concrete below, and put the left hand against the barrel of her weapon. In her role as support, she had been issued a standard pellet rifle, much heavier than the reduced-weight weaponry carried by 01 and 02. Her finger hesitated on the trigger... was this an appropriate response? Yes; it may disrupt the Angel's activity. Her first shot impacted in the center of her facet of the Angel's pattern... and the waves did not interfere.

Glancing to her left, she spotted 01, throwing its arms in front of its face to protect its optics... The pattern spiraled to nothing, leaving the section facing Ryoga a dull, flat black. Then... the building behind 01 faded, becoming black, soupy... the black flowed over 01. Voices poured through her communications line, intermixing...

\"...field! That SHADOW has..."/

\"What the hell are you doi..."/

\"Asuka! Rei! MISATO!"/ Ryoga's picture dissolved into static, and the black settled into a pool on the ground. She looked back at the sphere's form, which had settled into... it hadn't settled. She saw the circles deform, the center forming a whirlpool of black and white... centered on her.

\"...DRAW! Rei, withdraw, that's an ORDER!"/ Misato's voice was near hysteria, and Rei hesitated. If she didn't move, she was going to be engulfed too... so why couldn't she move?

She could. Rei lurched the Evangelion forward, aided by the push from the detaching power cable. Command had disconnected the power. She noted, in the part of her mind that was still thinking, the power countdown timer that sprang to life in the corner of the entry plug. Not a concern, the yellow timer. Red timers were a concern. It fit, almost.

Something was wrong with her mental responses, Rei thought. Some kind of physical feedback, shock perhaps? No, the shadow had not come in contact with 00... and as she turned back, partially from reflex, she saw her power cable disappear in a flowing mass of darkness that used to be a power connection building.

One voice cut through the audio din. Gendo's voice. "Rei, RUN!"

She answered, the words catching in her throat as she turned the Eva away. "Y...yes!" No sooner than she had finished did she match form to action, sprinting the Eva down the empty street. Distantly, she was aware of 02, moving in the opposite direction.

The... Angel... followed her, its form changing as it brushed against buildings, leaving skeletal frames exposed in its wake. It was following her, and it was faster than 00 was. A little.

\"...ead for the retrieval unit, six hundred meters, straight. RUN!"/

The Eva responded smoothly, following her commands as she hurtled down the street. Five hundred meters ahead, a pair of retrieval rails extended from the steel platform, ready to catch her. Four hundred meters. Three.

She felt the contact, a bar of solid fire across her ankle, before she noticed the leading edge of the Angel. The leg found no traction in the nothing-substance of the shadow, and the Eva pitched forward, falling... Rei kept running. Feet found purchase on concrete bare centimeters in front of the mass, and scraped her forward and out of the mire. She kept pumping, as fast as she had when running, faster. It wasn't going to work, it'd catch up to the Eva as soon as it reached the platform...

The ache in one shoulder wasn't Rei's, not really, but it bore testament to the damage caused by the friction against concrete. In frustration, Rei flung the damaged arm out, catching the side of the building, and pulled 00 from a pushing slide into a running lunge. She felt something give, heard the wet crunch, and gritted her teeth through the pain. It wasn't going to be enough. She'd reach the platform, only fifty meters away now, but she'd never get down in time...

Her left foot, 00's foot, crossed the line from street pavement to steel platform... crossed, and stepped down on the steel... and kept going. The platform wasn't there. Toppling forward, the Eva's chest impacted the opposite rim of the hole, and the Eva fell in...

Rei noticed the blackness, heart racing before she realized it to be the blackness of shade, not the absence of being. Somebody had closed the door behind her. She quickly extended the one good arm and both legs of unit 00, halting its fall, and attempted to sit back in her entry plug. Her chest ached, both from the damage dealt to the Eva in her flight, and from the effort of breathing liquid rapidly. It didn't make any sense... despite the Eva's movements, Rei herself had performed almost no physical actions whatsoever. Was it a physical problem?

Was it... fear... that she felt?

Tarou blinked, shook his head, blinked again. None of the monitors changed, and while what he had apparently seen was quite strange even by his own standards, it was still much more plausible than sudden limited delusions. Especially given what such a delusion would say about the state of his subconscious...

Not that the realization made him less queasy. If he had to pick the most ignoble way to go, being sucked into a moving shadow while in control of a massively powerful yet ugly mechanical being would rank very near the top, perhaps just under being cursed permanently female and dying while bearing Happosai's child. He cringed at the thought.

Misato turned from the screens, fists clenched at her sides, and stalked toward the exit. She barely noticed Tarou as he fell in beside her, both weaving to avoid the massive pile of extra technical equipment that occupied the floor of the command center. Funny, that... all those auxiliary sensor packs, and nobody had thought to patch them in with the rest of the computer equipment. And, of course, the necessary monitoring equipment had been in a small room three floors away. And, also of course, he hadn't been able to make a graceful exit (or even a rude one) before he was drafted into rolling cables and lifting boxes, preventing him from getting a first-hand view of the action outside. Which, of course, was a good thing, in retrospect.

He cleared his throat. "So, is pig-boy..."

"I don't know." Misato did not turn her head to look at him as the two left the command center and headed for the Evangelion hangars.

"What was that, then?"

"I don't know that, either."

"Well, what..."

Misato whirled, not breaking her stride. "I don't KNOW, okay? Damn it, I don't know what just happened, I don't know if he's alive or dead, and I have no damned IDEA what I can do about it right now! Lay off!"

Tarou shrank back half a step, less from any threat of physical violence and more from utter confusion. He knew that he wasn't good with women. If he'd forgotten, recent events with Asuka (who almost didn't qualify, not that it was important) had given him a thorough reminder. While there were two or three things he could say, it was unlikely that any of them would help the situation. "So... where are we going?"

"The hangars." She sniffed, lightly, but not in the rude/dismissive sense. More like the not quite weepy sense... "Gotta see if Rei is okay."

"Okay." He nodded to her back as she left for the elevator. Rather impressive, really. She had no idea what was going on, and she couldn't do anything constructive about the problem, so she picked up and moved to what she could handle. Better than breaking down in a fit of self-  
pity, anyway.

"Tarou?" Misato called from the elevator. "Go bug Ritsuko about it. She's going to have to pull one of her rabbits out of a hat if we're going to get Ryoga back."

Tarou nodded again, and as the elevator doors closed, he turned back to the command center. After a very short mental argument, he decided that he really DID want the annoying pig-boy back. After all, somebody had to do the job, and it might as well be the lost lad's responsibility...

Asuka whistled at the damage to Eva 00. For somebody who'd managed to almost avoid getting hit by the Angel, Wonder Girl had certainly managed to bang up her Eva. Asuka held on to the rail with both hands as the battered 00 dropped the last fifty feet down the recovery shaft, the impact sounding through the metal walkways like a gong. The Eva had scrapes and scratches all over, and the left shoulder assembly was a crumpled mass of armor plate and sticky red fluids. The left arm wasn't much better, with its elbow bent almost one hundred and ninety degrees. That'd take a while to fix. The main chest unit had been dented, a long horizontal impression just below the line of the shoulders. And one foot had been almost scoured, most of the armor simply gone. Asuka got the odd impression of an armored knight with one boot missing.

It was still moving, of course; the damage to the recovery system meant that Rei had to move the Eva back under power. Of course, that meant that she'd be synched with the Eva, which meant that all those tears and such would be hurting. Hurting a LOT, that elbow. Still almost one hundred percent better than Ryoga was...

That idiot! How dare he get himself killed and leave all of the piloting to her! Not that Asuka minded, exactly, but he still could have been less stupid. She'd have to eat Misato's cooking from now on, she supposed. Maybe Tarou could cook? He'd taken care of himself for a long time...

Rei docked Unit 00 in the restraining clamps, extruded her entry plug, and climbed out without bothering to drain the LCL. Asuka turned away, listening to the sound of the liquid breathing fluid spraying from the opened plug and falling to the floor below. She waited, absently noting the retching sounds as Rei brought up what LCL she'd had in her lungs, and what she'd managed to swallow. Disgusting, but Asuka couldn't complain about it, as she'd gone through the same process after every plug test and piloting job. You got used to it.

Once she heard the sound of regular breathing, she turned again. "Well, that wasn't exactly according to... mein Gott." Rei was still kneeling on the catwalk, LCL dripping off her suit and hair as she hugged her arms across her chest. She was shaking like a leaf. "Hey, Wonder Girl, you okay?"

Rei inhaled, paused, and spoke. "It's shivering... there must be something wrong with the environment control in the entry plug. I don't understand..."

Asuka squatted next to Rei, grabbing your shoulder. "But you don't feel cold..."

"That's... what I don't understand." Rei turned to look at Asuka. "Is that funny?"

"C'mon... get up." Asuka pulled Rei to her feet, giving her a quick tug towards the showers. "You were just scared, that's all."

Rei's eyes widened. "Scared? Fear?"

"Yeah, whatever you want to call it." Asuka rolled her eyes. "You DO know that you were almost killed by that thing, right? Dead? No more Wonder Girl? That's scary in my book."

"I..." Rei looked away. "I wonder why..."

It was a good question, but Asuka really didn't feel like getting into the metaphysical aspects of being at the moment. Even more, she didn't feel like rendering them into terms to which Rei could relate. "Don't ask me. What the heck were you thinking? Ryoga, I half expect him to act stupid. But you?"

"When two drops of water fall and make ripples, the ripples interfere." Rei's voice was quiet, as usual, and hesitant, as usual, but she wasn't shaking so hard now. "I thought that I could interfere with what it was going to do..."

Hm... that could have worked. Except for the fact that it hadn't, of course. "Well, Hibiki is going to chew you a new asshole, as soon as he's done with Ryoga..." Rei went absolutely stiff, eyes vacant. "Just kidding! We know he likes you better anyway."

Rei blinked, jerked, and continued walking. "He does not..."

Asuka stumbled, nearly falling. She glared back... there was a bump in the walkway, like somebody had stuck their hands in the concrete before it had set. In the molten metal, anyway. She shrugged and kept going, mumbling to herself about the place's strange sense of humor.

Ryoga flicked off the sensors of his Eva, replacing white noise with some kind of rainbow test pattern. He chuckled to himself. "Not always right, are you, Dad..."

He remembered a time, many years ago, when his father had sat him down and told him everything he needed to know about being lost. There was a lot less to it than people thought. And, for the most part, Ryoga had managed to follow them pretty well. Excepting the one concerning water, spring-type, and how not to fall in them.

He also remembered one time, after what little school he had attended at that age, coming home and confronting his father.

ChibiRyoga: The teacher told us that we should sit still and wait when we get lost! That way, somebody can come and find us.

Gendo: Really? Well, son...

Ryoga remembered the pride he'd felt, asking his father a real question that he couldn't have known the answer for. He remembered the answer, too.

Gendo: You're going to be lost a lot, you know, just like I was. If you just sit still, and don't move, than what are you going to do? How will people know what you're doing if you're not doing it?

He chuckled to himself, quietly. "But I can't just move on here, can I, Dad?" Something in the back of his mind tickled, disturbed that he was talking out loud to himself. He ignored it out of habit. After all, he'd had a lot of opportunity to talk to himself over the years. "I have to sit here and wait for you to come get me..."

Misato frowned. "WHAT was that?"

Across the table from her, Ritsuko also frowned. "Look... the concept is very simple. The Angel created some other space, and that's where Ryoga is now. It can kind of turn the barrier on and off, which is how it cut his power cord."

"Okay, I follow so far..."

"Good. I won't go into exactly how it made the space, mostly because I've no idea myself, and anybody that manages to explain it should be up for a Nobel prize, right after me."

Misato quirked her eyebrow. "For what?"

"For getting an Eva out of one, naturally. We can put Asuka here," as Ritsuko pointed to one circle on a map, "and Rei here, and have them generate AT fields, and then throw in every N2 bomb we can lay our hands on, and that should disrupt the Angel's space and free Unit 01."

"Every... Rit-chan, that's nine hundred N2 bombs."

Ritsuko grew a sweatdrop. "Um, yes."

"That's the plan? You hit it with N2 bombs? Don't we normally do that when the plan stops working?"

"Yes, but that was..."

"And do you know how big the CRATER will be?"

Ritsuko shook her head. "No, that's the best part, see... we detonate the N2 bombs INSIDE the space, so the damage won't extend beyond it."

"Inside the space where Ryoga is."

Ritsuko smiled. "Well, I suppose we could disrupt the other one by doing the same thing, but I think we can let it have the foot armor from 00... what?"

Misato wasn't military personnel, but she'd encountered a good amount of the training in her job as Operations Commander. She'd seen a few things, one of which was the term used for the results of a large explosive device detonating in an enclosed space with somebody. That term was "chunky salsa". And those devices had only been little grenades, not the big almost-nukes that NERV threw around... "Absolutely not."

"We have to get back the Evangelion, Misato! It's the only way I can think of."

"And the pilot? Your plan will kill Ryoga, you know!"

Ritsuko's eyes hardened. "You don't know that! Okay, granted, if it was anybody else, they'd probably be smeared into a thin paste on the side of the plug wall. But you've seen him! Hell, we could probably hit HIM with the bombs and he'd shrug it off!"

"Well, that's ridiculous." Misato lowered her hand, not having realized that she'd been prepared to slap her friend.

"Maybe so... but I don't know if he would die from shock. I DO know that he'll die of asphyxiation in two hours if we just sit and do nothing. Unless he's got some sort of meditation technique?"

"No." Misato had considered that, actually, but Tarou had said that he'd never even heard of anything like that. He'd also said that he found the concept of Ryoga meditating to be hilarious, even though his eyes were tight when he laughed over it. "Go ahead, but it's your damned responsibility if you kill him."

The rain... Ryoga couldn't remember rain this hard, beating off of his fur as if he'd stood under a waterfall. The sky, what he could see out of squinted eyes, was black and roiling with clouds. He trotted on, four feet working the dirt path into a muddy trail behind him.

The cave in the side of the hill was good... the flickering light from inside better. Somebody had already taken shelter in there, and people usually didn't begrudge a cute little pig the warmth of their fire. Maybe he could even trick them into dumping some hot water over him. Yeah, that would do... he entered the cave.

Immediately, the howl of the wind and crashes of thunder muted into the background noise, not quite drowned out by the crackle of a campfire. He took another step in, shaking himself off... and winced as near-  
steaming water rolled off of his back, momentarily soaking his fur before he HAD no fur.

The cave's occupant nodded, saying, "There you go," and placed the teakettle back over the fire. Ryoga sat on a stool-shaped rock, bewildered, and fully clothed. He stared at the other boy... the other boy wearing a yellow tunic, and black pants, and a yellow bandana with black patterns. The other boy sat down himself, smiled, and said "hi", using Ryoga's voice.

"Um... um... who... what... how..."

The other boy grinned. "Let me work that out. Who is me. I am... well, call me Ryoga. Ryoga Hibiki."

Ryoga let out a strangled gasp. "But I- am..."

"Ryoga Hibiki. Trust me, I know... I'm sort of the image of your self. The you that observes you. Follow?"

Ryoga stared at the not-Ryoga. "Nope."

"Didn't think you would, but you DID ask. As to what..." The not-Ryoga made a circular gesture, indicating the surroundings. "This is an image map of your subconscious. Kind of dark and dreary, but hey, that's you."

Okay, Ryoga. You're having a conversation with yourself... except that he's actually sitting over there, and talking back, and he's a hell of a lot smarter than you are too. "I'm... dreaming?"

The not-Ryoga rolled his eyes. "If you want to really simplify it, yeah, although I'd personally like to think that I have a hell of a lot more significance than all of those fantasies you keep having about Akane."

"Okay... I'm dreaming... how the hell do you know about Akane?"

Not-Ryoga leaned back. "Listen close, because this might throw you... I'm the aspect of your self, what THE Ryoga Hibiki is, that examines what that self is. It's kind of my full-time job to look at what you are, you could say."

"So, you're NOT me."

"No, I AM you, or at least a part of you. See, none of this is actually happening, you're just externalizing an internal dialogue. Um... you're talking to yourself in the dream, and that's why I look like you and know what you think."

Ryoga nodded. "And why my clothes came out of nowhere."

"Exactly. It's not like I want to see any of that." The not-Ryoga slapped his knee. "Okay, you get it, or close enough that you're satisfied anyway."

"I guess so. Um... what are we doing here?"

"Dunno. Your guess is as good as mine..." The not-Ryoga trailed off as something moved at the entrance to the cave. A small, black pig crawled towards the fire, bweeeeing for all it was worth.

Ryoga recognized himself, again. Reaching for the teakettle, he dribbled out enough hot water for the pig to change... into another Ryoga, of course. This one was glowering at the entrance. "Damn you, Ranma, for trapping me with this curse..." The newcomer seemed to notice the other two. "Oh, hi... who are you?"

The not-Ryoga bowed. "I'm Ryoga Hibiki. He's the real Ryoga Hibiki."

"So, you're the real Ryoga Hibiki? I thought that I was the real one." The newcomer looked at the not-Ryoga. "He's really the real one?"

"Hey! Of course I'm the real one." Ryoga was starting to get angry... if he was dreaming, and talking to himself, at least his self could quit ignoring him.

"Yeah, he's the real one." The not-Ryoga motioned for the newcomer to take a seat.

"Thanks... it's wet out there. No night to be traveling, even if that damn Ranma's probably doing something evil to Akane."

Ryoga leaned over to the not-Ryoga. "So, who's he?"

Not-Ryoga answered, whispering. "Um... time for a crash course in Buddhist thought. You know the concept of en?" Ryoga shook his head. "Funny, you've spent enough time crashed out in their temples and such... basically, it means that EVERYBODY that knows you has their own little Ryoga Hibiki running around in their head, kind of like I am with you, and that what the whole' you is, consists of all of them put together."

"That's... weird. So, do things really work that way?"

"Doesn't matter." The not-Ryoga chuckled. "It's your mind, right? I think this one's the Ryoga Hibiki from Ranma Saotome, given how he keeps going on about the guy."

"Makes sense... Ranma is self-centered..." Ryoga shook his head.

"Hey, what are you guys talking about?" Ryoga from Ranma slumped down, head resting on hands and elbows on knees.

"Nothing important... maybe we'd better wait until everybody gets here." The not-Ryoga refilled the teakettle, although Ryoga couldn't say exactly how he managed it, and stood next to the door.

Over the space of five minutes, another four pigs walked in and were doused to humanity. From a bit of quick guessing, Ryoga picked out the one that cracked the rock that he sat on as the Ryoga from Misato. The one that talked like he had Down's syndrome, that one was probably the Ryoga from Asuka. A third had a really strange appearance... skewed perspective, jerky motion, almost inhuman, though everything about it screamed that it, too, was Ryoga Hibiki. Ryoga tagged that one as Ryoga from Rei... he didn't know anybody else that weird. He couldn't quite guess the fourth, who looked almost normal aside from a constantly rumbling stomach. He hissed to the not-Ryoga. "Hey, which one is that?"

"Ryoga from Ukyou. After all, she feeds you every time she sees you, almost." The not-Ryoga grinned. "Okay, now that we're all here..."

Another Ryoga Hibiki, this one almost normal, walked in from the rain. "Is it all right if I come in... hey, why are you all looking at me like that?"

Ryoga nodded to not-Ryoga nodded to Ryoga from Ranma, Ryoga from Ukyou, Ryoga from Rei, and Ryoga from Asuka. That one HAD to be the Ryoga from Akane, to not have the curse... Ryoga waved Ryoga from Akane in and turned back to the fire.

"Um..." Ryoga coughed. "What are we doing here, now?"

Ryoga from Ranma spoke first. "I'm... drifting. Everything I used to live for, it's gone now. There's a few new things... but I don't know if it's enough to go on. I don't even know if I WANT to go on..."

Ryoga from Rei spoke next. "The feelings... I feel sad, I feel happy, angry, confused, I'm not sure where they are coming from, or why I'm feeling the way that I do. I don't know what's going on, and I can't do enough about it..."

At this, the not-Ryoga winked, jerked a thumb, and smiled. "But remember to consider the source, everybody."

"I... hid something for so long, and it was hard... but now that it's out, maybe I can live again, huh? But I feel wrong, feeling like that? What's wrong with me?" Ryoga from Akane bent his head, resting it on his knees, which he had drawn up under him. "I just don't know anymore..."

Ryoga from Ukyou nodded. "I know what you mean. Hell, I've never been able to try to get what I want; now I don't even know what I want anymore. It's like my life ended, but it's still going on and I don't know what to do anymore..."

The six other Ryogas present turned to look at Ryoga from Asuka. "My turn? Um... I do dumb things. Sometimes it's because I don't know better, and sometimes I do know better, but I do them anyway! Is that dumb, or what? I don't want to act stupid..."

Ryoga shook his head. "What did all that mean?"

The not-Ryoga frowned. "Those, they're people's representations of you, what they think you ARE of a sorts. Everyone, they're worried about you. I sure am, which means that you're worried about yourself. Right now, you're wondering what you can do about it."

Ryoga nodded. "Yeah."

"Don't YEAH, I'm the you looking at you, remember? I don't guess wrong about that kind of thing."

"You know, this is almost making sense..."

The not-Ryoga sighed. "Glad you appreciate the effort. Not easy, explaining deep philosophy to, well, me."

"So, what do I do about it?"

"What, like I have all the answers?" The not-Ryoga's eyes narrowed. "I can tell you what's important to you, what you're thinking about, what you're afraid of."

Ryoga's sigh was echoed in seven throats, as each one shifted closer to the warm fire. "Okay," Ryoga said, "But I know that already. What's important... Akane. Not much else." The seven nodded as one. "I'm afraid for her, about her, over her. Over me, right?" The not-Ryoga nodded, smiling. "Okay, there's that. Not to mention what would happen if she found out..."

"Found out about what?"

The other six Ryogas all turned on the Ryoga from Akane, simultaneously raising their fists. "NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!"

Outside the cave, something slipped on the wet rocks. Ryoga stood, his form silhouetted in the entrance before the driving rain for a moment, before he resumed his cursed form again.

"Wha... what the hell was that?"

"Stuff it, will ya? Something's going on..."

Ryoga's awareness of the cave faded, the voices lost in the wind and water, as he searched for the source of the sound. It wasn't far... he was on it, looking down at a person standing drenched in the rain. He couldn't see her features clearly, only that it was a woman, as she raised her arms to the sky. Her mouth opened, and she shouted at the top of her lungs...

"WHERE THE HELL AM I NOW?"

The world dissolved in white light.

Aoba looked up from his screens, glancing around the command center. They were almost ready to start, he thought. Misato directing the two remaining Eva, Ritsuko doing whatever deus ex machina she had planned, Ibuki helping her, Hyuuga doing communications and control. Which, naturally, left the most fun job for himself... somewhere, near the docks at Yokohama, there was a small arcade with an ancient Missile Command machine on which his three initials still flashed, for over twenty years. There hadn't BEEN docks in Yokohama then, of course, but... This wouldn't be all that different. Never thought that skill would come in handy, before.

His screen showed fourteen different fighter wings, each loaded with dozens of very destructive weapons, and it was his job to make sure that each and every one ended up inside the black mass resting under the sphere that really wasn't the Angel. It shouldn't be any problem, really, so long as no idiot pilot aimed for the sphere in the first place. Difficult to screw up, really.

That was a good thing, though. Before she went out, Asuka had learned that he was guiding the bombs in, and told him that if he should let one miss and damage her Eva, she would personally see another bomb guided somewhere not scatologically possible.

The first flight grouping would launch, from that point, in thirty seconds or so... he began frantically typing into the keyboard, ensuring that seventy weapons made the trip without bumping into each other or going off early. Fifteen seconds... ten... five... he finished with three to spare, and he leaned back to watch the fireworks.

The first plane flew through the firing space and didn't release. Neither did the second, or the third. In fact, the entire wing was pulling up and away from the target. He fumbled for his radio, preparing to find out what the hell was going on, and in the process glanced back at the main observation screen.

Oh. That would account for it. The big sphere, only moments ago covered with white stripes, had gone flat black. He keyed all of the rest of the planes off, considering what had happened the last time they'd fired something into this particular Angel. Ritsuko... she was staring at her display, mouth hanging in shock.

Something bulged on one side of the sphere. The material... whatever it was... stretched, bulged, and tore. Red fluid jetted from the wound as if there was a tear in an artery. The wound widened, as two hands pushed left and right. Through the fountain, something came out... Aoba spun in his chair, looking at Gendo. "An egg?"

The director's face widened into a slight grin. "A door."

Aoba's face turned a sickly shade of pale green as he stared at the following carnage. He heard a few sounds from his fellow technicians, one that he was sure was Ibuki losing her lunch, but he didn't look away from the screen.

Rei winced, looking out over the square where a berserk Evangelion had disposed of an Angel two hours before. Rei had not bothered to form an opinion on most of life... the act of judging certain activities as desirable or undesirable, when chance or logic caused them to occur, had always struck her as irrational. Life was life, this was self-  
evident. Whether she bothered to like it, or not, never seemed important.

She didn't like this.

It was perfectly reasonable to take Ryoga to see what had happened. He had no memory of the minutes before the Angel's death, as she had expected. The physical travel had not been onerous or tiring in any way. The scene, though... red, it was red. Not just the bright red of Unit 02's external coloration, not even the deep red of a sunset, but the red of drying, half-coagulated blood. She tried not looking at it... which proved to be impossible; gouts of the stuff had drenched every nearby building, every street, every tree, until it seemed that the earth itself had red soil. Even the sky seemed somehow tinted by the red. She tried closing her eyes... it removed the image of blood, but not the coppery taste in the back of her throat, nor the soft sounds made by her footsteps as she walked beside Ryoga, wet sounds as the pavement seemed to cling to her shoes. Nor did it remove the memories of blood.

She heard Ryoga speak. "And it was here? Ripped itself out?" She nodded, once, not looking at him. He continued. "This is..." His voice trailed off, and she heard him whispering, trying to find words. None seemed to fit.

"Ryoga..." She sneezed, then scrubbed furiously at her nose. Blood was red from iron; should it not then smell like iron? No, it was copper. "Are you... finished?"

"Yeah." Ryoga turned towards her, and she opened her eyes long enough to take in his worried expression as he looked at her. "Come on, let's go back."

Misato's car was still a block away when Rei took a deep breath. Once away from the stench, the air was... more pure. Well, of course it was more pure, it was away from the stench, but... there seemed something now different about the ordinary air.

Ryoga noticed the change. "That was... horrible."

Rei nodded. "I will not return here."

"Me neither."

They walked in silence, shoes whispering against uncontaminated asphalt, for a few seconds. Ryoga clenched a fist at his side and squeezed his eyes shut. "Rei... Misato told me what you did. Next time... don't. Just go."

What did he mean by that? If she just went, how could... Ryoga's intent became clear. "I will protect you." It was not the first time she had said it... perhaps the Angel attack had affected his long-term memory?

Ryoga's laugh held no trace of humor. "I'm not worth protecting. Not if it hurts you. Next time, go."

"I will not." It was the first time Rei had ever heard those words. She had never considered saying them before, never considered a situation in which they could possibly be useful.

Ryoga turned, not pausing in his stride, and his eyes were wide with some emotion Rei did not recognize. "Why not? How can you..." Her shrug cut him off. "I won't let you die out there."

"It wouldn't matter." Rei kept her eyes open, staring straight ahead, fixing the image of Misato's car in her mind. When she got home, she would shower, even though she had before leaving the pilot's ready room. The ridiculous image of her washing away the memories of blood came to her... it was foolish, and she did not understand, but she would shower anyway.

Ukyou hummed cheerfully as she finished tidying the restaurant from a busy day. Everything would be just so, ready for the next morning, as it had been that morning, and the morning before, and the morning after the next as well. Everything in perfect order, perfect harmony.

What a farce.

She had never considered this outcome, in all her years of dreaming, all her thoughts. That she had changed her claim from revenge to marriage seemed not to matter. She had dreamed of victory, standing over Ranchan's blood-soaked body, her spatula raised triumphantly in the air. She had dreamed of their wedding day, and the night after, with much the same frenzied enthusiasm. She had even dreamed of defeat, her life ending in a desperate attempt to rid the world of the evil of the Saotome clan, sacrificing her very life to see her opponents laid waste as well. It held a kind of honor, that end.

She had never dreamed of this end. This didn't even have honour to redeem it.

It had taken her a week, one of crying and weeping, fits of anger, even closing the shop one day, for her to accept what she had heard from Ran-ch... Ranma. Belief had come first, that he had meant the words, that he had loved Akane more. That he DID love Akane more. There was fury, mad plans to reunite them thrown out, one unworkable plot after another. Depression had followed, and she shied away from remembering the dark thoughts of one night. Now, she had accepted... and the pain in her soul was gone. She could feel the hole, the pain draining from the same rent that had been made when Ranma had rejected her for the final time. She felt... empty.

A rustle at the front door of the shop brought her head up, alerting her to the presence of a visitor. She thought about picking up her battle spatula, and decided against it. What could come after her now, to hurt her more? She recognized the danger in that line of thinking, tried to make the effort to care. A stray thought brought a snort of laughter to her. With Ranma gone, it was highly unlikely that she would ever need to use her skill in combat again. That's it, girl. Concentrate on the positives.

The girl's head that popped in the half-open door seemed oddly familiar... recognition hit Ukyou with both fists. A visit by Tsubasa Kurenai, while potentially good for working off aggression, could hardly qualify as a positive. The cross-dresser came in, bent nearly double around something that he clutched to his side. "Hey, Tsubasa... when you wake up, and your life is over, and it still goes on, what do you do with it, huh?"

"Came... to see you." Ukyou's mind idly noted that Tsubasa was getting a bit more daring in his selection of outfits. Even Ranma would blush to be seen in that shade of red... with yellow streaks... that dress had been yellow. "Wanted... to see you one more time, Ukyou-sama."

She crossed the few feet separating them, pulling his body fully inside and laying him on the floor. He had gathered the fabric of his skirt around the left side of his waist, where the material was darkest red, several patches a brighter red where the saturated dress failed to staunch even more blood. She fumbled with a cloth, tying it into a bandage, and lifted the skirt away from the wound.

Oh.

She let the scarf fall, and gathered his head in her hands. His face was pale, a dull white against the thin trickle of blood coming from his mouth. "What happened? Who did this to you?" She felt herself going numb, refusing to accept... no. It was real. There wouldn't be any helping Tsubasa, not anymore.

He chuckled, his chest rasping. "Not exactly what I had in mind... dear Ukyou-sama... but it'll do. It'll... do." Tsubasa closed his mouth, and his eyes, and Ukyou was not sure whether the tremor that passed through him was his, or her own.

Tarou clapped Ryoga on the back. "Don't EVER do that again, pig-boy." The two sprawled on the couch, idly watching television, just catching what little of the battle had been allowed on the late news.

Ryoga chuckled to himself. "Keep that up and I'll start thinking that you care."

"I do care, stupid." Ryoga's neck whipped around. "After all, if you croak, who am I going to freeload off of? Not that I need to freeload, of course." Tarou's own chuckle was deeper, richer with humor and experience. Well, he liked to think so, at any rate.

"Thanks." Ryoga raised the remote control, looking at the screen.

The announcer had just finished the bare-bones account, which was barely recognizable as a battle unless you happened to already know what happened. "Next, in local news, a bear broke free from an animal show and attacked a nearby street vendor. Fortunately, the diners were saved when a young martial artist intervened. We managed to secure a short interview with..."

"Boooo-ring." Ryoga's thumb stabbed down on the "off" button.

Hyuuga sat down on the steps leading to his apartment. Despite his fatigue, he really didn't want to go inside right then. Instead, he held his head in his hands and worried.

Misato. He'd been an idiot to give up Misato. She was so full of... he didn't know what it was. Life. Energy. It was enough reason to go on living, he reasoned, just to be around her. He knew he wasn't the only one to see it. He had seen the reflection of it in Aoba's step, the three walking from one part of the complex to another... in the way the pilots smiled and nodded whenever she asked something of them... in the way Ritsuko's barbs, normally razor-sharp, seemed to slide off like water on a duck's back. Never in Gendo's eyes, though.

And he'd thrown it away in a fit of pique. It didn't matter that nobody knew about it... well, nobody but that odd Chinese guy that obviously didn't know why he decided to stay around Misato's place even as he, too, was affected by her spirit. It really didn't matter. For a moment, an instant, a week really, he'd betrayed her in his heart. He wasn't worthy of her anymore. And for what? He could be honest with himself... there weren't any other prospects for him anyway.

The voice, when he heard it, was sandpaper on wood, dry as a desert. "Fancy meeting you here."

He didn't look up. "I live here... why would it be a "fancy" anything?"

"So it is. You don't look like much, son-in-law."

His mind registered the non sequitur, and he glanced up at the speaker. Not very far up. She was a shrunken dwarf, desiccated, with wrinkles piling over creases covering lines, and crow's feet that would have fit a roc. The shapeless covering that she wore bore a symbol that he did not recognize, and the dried staff held in her arm was distinguishable from her skin only by the angle with which she held it. He momentarily wondered if he had encountered a dwarfish Ent, idiotic as that might sound, before he remembered the first oddity. "I'm a bachelor."

It... no, she... chuckled. "Wouldn't have it any other way. Greetings, young Makoto Hyuuga. I am Cologne."

"Good evening, Cologne-san. Pleased to meet you." He bowed slightly, made less impressive by the slump already present in his posture, and blinked. "But if you knew that I was a bachelor, why did you..."

"I spoke of the future, of course. You should feel blessed. Not many men are possessed of the strength, courage, and wisdom to defeat an Amazon in combat."

Amazon... Amazon... he'd heard that word used recently... oh, no. "Um... if this is about the other night... I'm really sorry. I assure you, Cologne-  
san, that I didn't have any intention of hurting her. It just sort of..." He began flailing with his hands, then stopped, realizing that giving the girl's grandmother a blow by blow account of the night may not have been a good idea. He revised that age estimate to "great-grandmother". "It was a complete accident. I'm really sorry." He braced himself for the retribution...

The crone raised an eyebrow. "Really? An accident? You almost killed her."

"I'm really, really sorry!" Hyuuga managed to stop himself from trembling. Sure, his dignity wasn't worth a wet rag, but at least he could stop from throwing it at the feet of this Cologne-person.

"You're polite, at least. Well... either you are a true master, at such a young age, skilled even to the point where you can mask an awesome fighting spirit from me even at this close an examination, or you have an incredible dose of luck. My vote, son-in-law, is not on the first."

"Luck! Yeah, that was it... pure luck. I'm lucky sometimes." Hyuuga realized that he was babbling, chalked it up as a perfectly normal reaction for somebody that was about to die... they'd told him that the Amazons were all ferocious warriors, and now he remembered the sex-  
changing one talking about some old bat that kept on meddling. There was something else, but he couldn't make his mind dredge it up.

"That's good! Luck can be a valuable asset. So, boy, are you smart?"

Hey, now... "Of course! I finished second in my class. Twice."

"Not first?"

"Why be first?" He shrugged. "The number didn't matter back then anyway."

"That's also good." She shifted, the stick blurring as it shot toward his face... the pointy end parted his lips at the corner of his mouth and pulled. "Good teeth, as well. Okay, you pass."

"Pass? What pass?"

Cologne sighed. "You will marry my great-granddaughter Shampoo, as soon as she recovers from the injuries that you gave her. It is a good match... every quality that you seem to have is one that her end of the family line seems to lack. We'll be seeing you, son-in-law." She jumped, her form melding with the late-night shadows at the top of the building.

He felt the blood drain from his face. Now he remembered, remembered how everybody had laughed as the cute one with short hair had told him that he'd find himself married if he didn't watch out. They all seemed to find that one funny... he buried his head in his hands again, set to resume moping, and couldn't manage to work up the self-pity. A minute later, he was in his apartment, sleeping.

Akane blinked, scrubbing sleep away from her eyes, and stared at the clock. It was twenty minutes past midnight, and she KNEW that something had been tapping at her window. The inconsiderate jerk. Ranma continually claimed that he wasn't interested in peeping, and that he could easily wait until after marriage, and even if he'd wanted to, she wasn't sure that she would have refused if he'd asked... but to peep at her window this late?

She'd show him this time. Rising from bed, she rolled from the covers to the foot of the bed, one hand snatching her kendo sword from its customary spot against her footboard. Another moment, and she had spun full in front of the window, thrown it open, and brought the bundle of thin lathes down on... wait. Ukyou stood on the windowsill of her second-  
story room, shivering from cold. Except that it was still fall, and not that cold outside. And she didn't have that huge metal spatula with her. "Can... can I come in?"

Akane took a deep breath and dropped the kendo sword to the floor. "Um... okay. I thought you were..." She managed to catch herself before she pronounced Ranma's name. Mentioning him, or their marriage, to Ukyou would be cruel. Even with the pause, something shifted in Ukyou's demeanor. "Are you okay, Ukyou?"

"Thanks." The chef swung her legs over the sill, climbed inside the room, and closed the window and curtains behind her. Akane thumbed on her desk lamp... something WAS wrong with Ukyou. Something about her eyes, that kept darting around the room without really seeing anything. "Tsubasa came by tonight."

"The cross-dressing freak?" Akane grinned. "I hope you taught the boy a lesson."

Ukyou stared up at Akane's face, eyes blank. "Tsubasa's gone, Akane."

"Gone? That's great! He won't..." Akane's reply petered out as she looked more closely at Ukyou's expression. "Um... when you mean gone, you don't mean GONE, do you?"

Ukyou nodded.

"Oh, no... he didn't try to..." Akane didn't quite know how to phrase the question. Did he try to force himself on her? Did she kill him to stop him?

"Something had hurt him, Akane. He came in, and I snapped at him, and he lay down on the floor and bled to death. I never... he didn't deserve... he was smiling, Akane. He was smiling at me."

Akane knelt next to Ukyou, wrapping her in a hug. Tsubasa, dead. Akane's memories of the pervert were not fond, true, but he didn't even deserve to get hurt. He was just a little too motivated towards his hobby, that was all. He might have even gotten better... "It's okay."

Ukyou gave no indication that she had noticed. "The police came, and they said that they had heard me screaming, and they looked at a lot of things. And then they took him away, and now he's gone. I didn't mean it, I really didn't mean it when I said that!"

"It's okay, it's okay... it wasn't your fault."

"I really didn't want to go back there tonight." Ukyou smiled, but her voice wavered on the edge of tears. "It was... I couldn't stay there tonight. At first, I thought of..." She paused, but Akane heard Ranma's name as clearly as if she'd said it, in her Kansai accent. She probably would have called him Ranchan, too. "But I can't see him either, right now. Can I stay here tonight?"

Akane nodded. "Of course. I can't believe... how? Why?"

The nod seemed to infuse something into Ukyou. The coldness in her eyes receded slightly, enough to take away the war-refugee look. "Really? Thanks, thanks a lot... I just couldn't think of anywhere else to go."

"It's okay. What are friends for?" Akane's words surprised even her, and Ukyou's smile firmed as she returned Akane's hug for a few seconds. "Here, let me get you a spare futon and some blankets."

Ukyou didn't let go of Akane's arm. "No, I'm okay... I really don't want to be alone right now, okay?"

"It's okay." Akane pulled Ukyou onto the bed, and gathered the comforter around them, as Ukyou leaned on her and cried.

Misato's mind blurred, dulled by amounts of alcohol beyond the tolerance of even her toughened liver. The "thank God that you're still alive" celebration that she'd thrown for Ryoga had lasted for an hour, in which Misato had stopped drinking only to breathe, and most of the air from that devoted to informing Ryoga what a stupid mistake he had made and how glad that she was that it hadn't killed him. Rei seemed subdued, even compared to her normal introverted behavior, and thus Misato had spared her from any further tirades. After all, there wasn't any point in bawling her out in the first place. Asuka and Tarou had both dropped the sarcastic act, even if only for a night, and both had drank enough to make headway into her second rack of beer. And something had just pulled her from what should have been the sleep of the soused.

That something was her pocket phone, ringing in priority pattern. She mumbled as she managed to fish it from the pile of clothing at the end of her futon. "please don't let be an angel please don't let it be an angel please don't let it be an angel please... Hello?"

Gendo's voice crackled from the receiver. "Katsuragi?"

"Speaking." She managed to force the alcohol-born slur from her voice, if not her posture.

"You are familiar with the transient known as Pantyhose Tarou?"

She imagined Gendo's face wearing a grim smile at that name. "Yes..."

"And your son, Ranma Saotome?"

"Hell yes." Okay, she was drunk, she was tired, protocol be damned. "What about them?"

"You are to inform them both that they are to be activated as Evangelion pilots, for units 04 and 03 respectively. Have them report to HQ as soon as they are notified. And..."

"Yes?" The import of the message failed to penetrate the haze around Misato's consciousness.

There was a moment of silence over the line. "No, that is all." Gendo's voice cut off, and the connection cut off.

"Okay, sir, firs' ting inna morning..." Misato's head hit the pillow, drowning out the rest of her reply, and the phone dropped from her hand. Sleep... first, she'd worry about sleeping, then about telling Gendo's plumber that the hot water pipes were busted or whatever he'd been talking about.

End of part 17

These are starting to get longer... which may reason why it is taking so danged long to write them. As usual, e-mail any comments to akent , and feel free to make suggestions, PLEASE! I figure I'm at the half-way mark, give or take five episodes. sigh  



	18. Chapter 18

Akane stared at the ceiling. "Ukyou, are you still awake?"

"Yeah." Ukyou shifted slightly, moving the heap of blankets on the floor of Akane s room. "How about you?"

"Yeah."

What happened? Nerima used to be peaceful. Well, not peaceful... in fact it was chaos. But nobody ever died from it. Even after getting hammered through layers of concrete, hit with multiple-kiloton explosions, and beat within an inch of their life, people always got up, dragged themselves off, and got better.

Not anymore. Kodachi died a few weeks ago... no, she was killed a few weeks ago. And now Tsubasa was dead. Neither of them had been her friend, not by any stretch of the imagination, but they didn t deserve to die. Of course, whatever... whoever had killed them was still out there, too.

None of that included the giant robots that kept on showing up, of course. Not that Akane could do anything about it; Ryoga and the others would have to do.

"Who do you think did it, Ukyou?"

Ukyou started coughing, whatever she had been about to say disappearing in the noise. "Who? Do you think that we know... whoever did it?"

"I don t know... shouldn t we?"

"Um... no! I don t know anybody who would have done... that." Ukyou s voice was weak... whatever she had seen last night, it must not have been pleasant.

"Ah."

"Could it have been Tarou?"

Akane almost giggled. "Thought that you didn t know... no, I don t think so. It s not his style... if it was Happosai, I might think it was him."

"If it was Happosai, we wouldn t care."

"Well, yeah. Besides, he s been hanging around Ryoga a lot."

Ukyou gasped. "You don t think it was Ryoga?"

"NO! I... it couldn t have been him!" Ryoga kill people? That was... stupid. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn t! Probably wouldn t.

"Oh." Neither of them spoke for a minute. "Somebody we don t know, then?"

"Guess so..."

Shadows played across the ceiling as the tree outside Akane s window blew in the wind. Akane pulled the coverlet up to her chin... she was scared, a little, and not afraid to admit it. Even though it was nobody that she cared for, so far... Thank goodness it hadn t been Ranma.

"Thank goodness it wasn t Ranma..." Ukyou turned over. "I don t know what I would have done."

"Ukyou..." Akane hesitated to finish. After all, it really hadn t been fair, what had happened to Ukyou. She didn t deserve to get caught between Akane and Ranma. "I m sorry."

"It s not your fault." Ukyou s cough sounded suspiciously like a sob, now. "It s not even his fault, really..."

"It s always Ranma s fault, or Genma s. That idiot."

"Hm? No, I was talking about Ryoga... he kind of pushed you two together, right at the end, you know."

Akane swallowed past the lump in her throat. Ryoga had loved her for... how long? A year? More? And she d never seen a thing. Well, not much of one, anyhow. How could she have been so blind? "Oh... um, yeah, I guess so."

"It still hurts a little, though." Ukyou sat up, looking straight at Akane s half-open eyes. "Are you two going to be okay? Please... it s important to me."

Akane reached out, hugging Ukyou to her. "We ll be okay. I promise. I ll keep him from doing anything stupid."

"Good luck with that..." Ukyou s half-laugh, half-sob had a bitter quality to it, like something Ryoga would have said in one on his depressed periods.

"Heh." Akane s thoughts drifted... what Ukyou really needed was a guy that wasn t an idiot. As if there were any of those around...

-  
Paradise Lost, part 18 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters copyright Gainax or Rumiko Takahashi -

Ritsuko raised a palm to her face. The mess that they d managed to make...

Was a lot less than it could have been, of course. However nasty the replacement of armor was, it couldn t match trying to piece limbs back on. And the damage wasn t that bad, really. 00 needed a new chest plate, of course. The old one had a twenty-foot-wide horizontal dent in it, from shoulder to shoulder. They d finish ripping it off of the Eva in another half an hour, at which point they d store it in an empty hangar somewhere. Who knows... it might end up modified into another shield unit, in case any of the other Angels had large energy weapons.

They d spent fourteen hours working on 00 s foot unit. Most of the armor from the back and sides had been... eroded? Transitioned into another reality? Whatever... by the Angel s shadow. A lot of the organic material needed to be removed, as well. Hibiki s orders, but damn good sense as well. If they needed to, they d take the whole foot off to prevent the Eva from being contaminated.

Of course, the left shoulder had to go, as well. The pauldron had been mutilated in Rei s fall, and a lot of the armor had been torn away, as well. That, and the broken elbow (and wasn t THAT going to be fun!), and they could call it a day. Literally.

Eight hours ago, they d brought in Ryoga s Evangelion. Somehow, despite getting completely subsumed by the Angel, it was intact. A quick spray job to get off all the blood, and it was as good as new. The entry plug, however... it d take days to get all of the contaminated LCL out of the thing. Better to toss it and use another one. Entry plugs were relatively cheap, anyway.

Her thoughts started to slide... Ritsuko quickly removed her face from her hand, realizing that she d almost drifted off to sleep on her impromptu pillow. More coffee, that s what she needed.

Gendo blew on his bowl of ramen. It was still steaming hot, and it d take another minute or two before he could eat it, most likely. Leaning back in his chair, he decided to spend that minute looking around.

The first time he d been in here, his attention had been focused on the occupants: all three pilots, and the wizened little Amazon elder. Now, though, said elder was out back with said pilots, putting Asuka and Rei through some basic combat maneuvers and making sure that his son didn t manage to run off. It wasn t like the d cor was distracting, anyway. Plain wood tables, plain wood chairs, plain wood walls. Nicely cut, nicely varnished, but lacking in decoration.

In fact, the only thing breaking the monotony of the place was the duck. Gendo supposed that it had some sort of decorative value. Maybe it had cultural significance as well? Eh. Probably, it was just next week s menu item.

The crone bounced in from the side door and came to a rest across the bar from Gendo. She looked... well, he wasn t going to be able to read the expression of somebody with that many wrinkles very well, now was he? Even so, it was a lot closer to exasperation than to contentment.

"What, are you just going to let it sit there and get cold? Eat it! I don t let my cooking go to waste."

Gendo lifted an eyebrow. "I don t let my taste buds get third-degree burns. Where are they?"

"If you mean the kids, they re all out picking up." Cologne sighed. "It went quite differently than what I expected."

The ramen tasted nice, if a tad shy on salt for Gendo s tastes. Of course, he didn t need the salt, like he used to... he continued to eat, half-gesturing with one of his chopsticks for her to continue.

After a second, she complied. "Ryoga is Ryoga. It would take a complete reworking of his standard style for me to give him any improvements there, and you don t have weeks for the learning. Most of the special techniques, same thing. But you re not really worried about him, anyway."

Gendo mumbled around a mouthful of ramen. "If his martial arts prove insufficient, then they prove insufficient. What about the other two?"

"Asuka is normal for her age, although lacking quite a bit in training." Cologne s eyes narrowed. What, did she expect every culture to train its girls in combat as thoroughly as her own? "She s not nearly skilled enough to have a style, although she s vicious enough for all three of them."

"And Rei?"

"I don t know what to think about her. She s as centered as I am, or close enough, and has an incredible ability to mimic what I m doing... but she s got no fire!" Cologne s puzzled expression matched her tone. "She has no creativity, no variance, no... she just doesn t WANT to fight. Sure, if I tell her to do something, she ll do it, but she s not really participating."

That sounded exactly like his Rei, all right. "It was to be expected. If you can, concentrate on reflexive moves, defenses. I don t need martial arts death machines, I just need pilots that know how to defend themselves."

"I can do that, certainly. It s better than banging my head against a wall."

Gendo stood up. "Well and good, then. If anything happens, you ll figure out how to get in touch, I m sure."

"SIT BACK DOWN, BOY!" Cologne s hair lifted from the back of her neck as her pupils vanished in a wash of yellow power. "Finish eating that ramen! I don t cook it to waste!"

"Okay, okay, I ll eat the ramen." Gendo sat back down, remarking to himself that, sometimes, it just wasn t worth the effort to argue.

Misato had been waiting for an hour now. It wasn t that much of a problem. She enjoyed the view of the Tendo s koi pond from their dining room, and the tea that the oldest daughter brought her. Truth be told, she wasn t keen on making this request of her son in the first place. It had to be done, though.

Ranma vaulted over the wall, back from his morning workout, and paused at the door. "Mom? What re..."

"Come in and sit down, Ranma."

He complied, lowering himself across from her at the table. "You don t HAVE to hang around, mom."

"I need to..." Misato blinked. "What do you MEAN, I don t have to hang around?"

"Um... This isn t easy, but I was thinking... I m glad you re okay. Really, I am. But I can get along just fine without ya, I did for years and stuff."

Oh, now, THIS was rich. "So you d prefer that I didn t come around? Just what kind of crap did that bastard Genma fill your head with, son?"

"You... you embarrass me, mom. I mean... you don t act like a mom at all! It s half a big sister that I never had and half Shampoo!" Ranma looked away from her. "It s not that I don t like ya, but it s hard!"

Misato bit back her reply. He did have something of a point; she certainly didn t have a handle on the whole mother business. Playing guardian for Ryoga, Asuka, and Rei wasn t even in it. Nevertheless... she stuck her arm across the table, catching the front of Ranma s shirt.

He flinched. He MORE than flinched... his arm jerked halfway towards hers, the shift faster than Misato could follow. As if he d tried to intercept her hand and changed his mind.

Well, it was good that he was hesitant to hit his mother, she supposed. Putting as much ice in her voice as she could, she said, "Look, I didn t come here to talk about how you feel being seen in public with me! I ve got a question."

"Okay." She had Ranma s full attention, now.

Misato took a deep breath, and let go of Ranma s shirt. "It s more of a request."

"What, a favor? No sweat. What is it?"

"No, it s not a favor!" That came out sharp, more sharp than she d intended. Have to even the tone out a little... here goes nothing. "They sent me here today to ask you if you d pilot an Evangelion."

"Pilot... the robot? The purple one?" Ranma s eyes crinkled, as if he was about to laugh.

"Well, no, I don t think you d get Unit 01, it works best with Ryoga, but you never..." She cut off as Ranma DID start laughing. Very loud laughter. Loud and a touch mocking.

"Um... no offense, mom, but I d have to be an idiot to climb in one of those things. Ryoga s told me about them. Why me, anyway?"

"I don t know, I m not the one that picks potential pilots. My guess, it s something about that... curse... of yours. After all, you re not fourteen like Rei or Asuka..." She d have to get more casual about that. It was a part of his life, no matter how she thought of it. She almost told him that she would talk with Tarou later, then changed her mind. To hear Ryoga talk, they had a certain history. "That, and they ve seen you fight. Remember that little party with Ryoga down the highway a couple weeks back?"

"Ah, um, okay, I guess that makes sense. Um... sorry about that, by the way." Ranma s hand scratched idly at the base of his braid.

Misato waved the apology away with her hand. "Ranma, we could use you out there." Her voice dropped in volume as she continued. "Ryoga, and Rei, they almost died yesterday."

"No way. I knew it took you forever, but... really?"

"Well, Rei wasn t all that close, actually. But Ryoga... if he hadn t killed the Angel when he did, if he d waited five more minutes, he would have suffocated."

Ranma rocked back on his heels. "Man... are they okay?"

Misato coughed. "Yeah, although Ryoga says that he can t remember any of it. Could be that he s got some brain damage, but we hope not."

"No kidding, he doesn t have much to lose..." He flashed a grin at Misato s outraged expression. How could he joke about something like this? "It s okay, mom, but I dunno. I gotta think about Akane, too. I mean, she d hate it if I got killed out there."

"Hey, I d hate it if you got killed out there! Although I d hate it a lot more if the world ended because you were too much of a wuss to help us out." Misato softened it with a touch of a smile, but she meant the implied insult.

"I m not a wuss. You know that." Ranma frowned.

"I believe that. So, are you going to help us out?"

Ranma started to shake his head, stopped, and then nodded. "Okay, but on one condition. I talk to Akane first. If she says no... oh, hell, I don t know what I ll do then. I ll think of something."

Misato glanced towards the stairs. "Where is she?"

"She s in her room... NO, I m not going to go talk with her now." Ranma s expression tightened, a mixture of worry and regret. "She s up there, talking with Ukyou... you met her, right?" Misato nodded. "Some guy got killed in her place last night."

"Oh, man..."

"Yeah, oh man. He was kind of a fruit, really, but..."

That statement tickled something at the back of Misato s mind. "Didn t somebody else get killed a while back?"

"Yeah, although I don t even think that Kodachi s family misses her. She was nuts! Really, seriously loco. But yeah... it s got Akane spooked, and Ukyou s still in shock, kinda, and I sure as heck can t help her out."

No, that wouldn t be too bright of her son, now would it? "Well, then..." Misato pulled out a small card and flipped it toward Ranma. One hand flew out, snagged it from the air, and held it in front of his face. "Welcome to the team, kid."

Ranma shot her an accusing glare. "You knew that I d say yes, didn t ya, mom?"

She smiled. "Pretty much. After all, you ARE a manly man... RIGHT?"

They both laughed at her mock seriousness. Ranma stood up, and Misato followed suit, heading for the gate and her waiting car. After all, there was more to do in the day than just shoot the bull with her son.

"Hey, mom... I went to check on Ucchan s place when I was out, and there must have been fifty guys from your outfit there. You do police work, too?"

Misato turned her head to look at her son. "Um, no, but I can find out why, if you want."

"It s not important, I was just curious."

"Ucchan s? Who s that?"

Ranma s right eye twitched. "Um, I meant Ukyou."

"Better watch it, or Akane will get jealous."

"She IS jealous. S a good thing I have a hard head."

Well, he had a point... finally, something positive that he inherited from his father s side of the family.

Ryoga was in the middle of a slow argument.

He sat on the floor of the apartment, back pushed up against a chair, and scowled at Rei. She sat on the couch, calmly reading through another volume of manga, looking for more clues to help her find a sense of humor. He couldn t get properly angry at her, not when she interspersed her answers with questions about the contents of those books. Heck, she d even been right once or twice.

A very slow argument, indeed.

In fact, it generally took her ten or fifteen minutes to respond to any of his questions. It was like she considered the whole thing of incredibly low importance, like he was being a total idiot for wasting her time with it...

Rei shook her head, slightly. "No, I don t need you to protect me."

"Rei..." Ryoga sighed. They d been arguing, if you could call it that, since the morning on the subject. Asuka had listened for a few minutes, decided that it was boring, and went with Tarou somewhere. Somehow, Rei had the idea stuck in her head that she should protect HIM, and that it didn t matter if she died in the process. He didn t understand the reasoning...

Maybe she didn t understand what she was talking about. That made more sense than anything else Ryoga could think of... "Um... Rei, when you die, that s it. Period. End of sentence. No more NERV, no more talking with Gendo, no more nothing. Maybe there s an afterlife or something, but you sure as heck can t help us out here."

It d be just like her to misunderstand what death meant. After all, she didn t know what humor meant, she didn t know what love meant, she didn t know what anger meant... come to think of it, Ryoga was a bit fuzzy on the love concept himself, but that didn t matter. Then again, death was a bit simpler. Kind of a no-brainer, really.

Of course, he could always take a page out of Ranma s book and be sneaky about it. While Ryoga doubted he could get away with a dumb costume, it wouldn t be too hard to "accidentally" throw something heavy at Rei s entry plug before they scrambled for the next attack. He d just have to make sure that she wasn t in it, that s all. And by the time they got a new one, she d be out of danger... yeah, that would work.

"No, that s not true."

Well, now, he had a plan that didn t require him to convince Rei that she wasn t expendable after all. That was good. He tried to pick up the thread of the conversation... she told him that she didn t need protection, he told her about death, she said that it wasn t true... back up the truck. "What?"

"Death is not final. I would still be able to function."

"Are you feeling all right, Rei?" Had the stress reached her, snapped some hidden working in her brain? Well, he could have said that, he supposed.

"Yes." Rei blinked, surprised at the question.

Ryoga sat up straighter. "How would you be still able to function after death? You d be DEAD."

"No, that s not true. I died once."

"It doesn t count if they resuscitate you."

A cloud of emotion passed over Rei s face. True, it was a very small, fast-moving cloud, but Ryoga could see the change. "They didn t. I died... there was an accident, a few years ago. They put me in another body, and here I am."

"Another body?" Ryoga was over his head here.

"Yes, I have several spare bodies. They are... fragile."

"And you re SURE that you died? How?"

Rei nodded. "I do not remember how. Everything before... the memories aren t clear. I know there are things which I do not remember, but not which things."

"I see," Ryoga said, not seeing at all.

"So it doesn t matter if I am killed; Hibiki will bring me back again." Rei cocked her head towards Ryoga. "You aren t laughing."

"Laughing?" Now he was completely confused. "Why would I be laughing? You just told me that you can come back from the dead!"

Rei s puzzled expression was very like her neutral expression, save for a tightness in the eyes. "When I learned your secret, it was funny, you laughed about it. You just learned my secret. Hibiki told me not to tell people... but you needed to know. Should I be laughing?"

Ryoga didn t say anything... he merely crossed his arms over his chest and rested his head on the side of the chair. It didn t make any sense. She died once. She came back from death! And she could do it again! He barely noticed Rei stand up and leave the room. Back from the dead. Well, that could explain a few things...

Rei sipped at a glass of water. She hoped that Ryoga understood now, that she wouldn t have to keep him from trying to protect her. He could be killed, doing that, and HE didn t have spare bodies. Probably. Hibiki could have hidden some, somewhere. But he hadn t SAID that there were hidden spare bodies, so she couldn t trust that.

From the next room, she heard a noise from Ryoga. It started as a barking laugh, which then changed to the loudest laugh that she had ever heard, and then again changed to a laugh interspersed with a kind of wheezing sound.

He had lied to her! Rei had guessed correctly about secrets. Now she would have to figure out why he d try to help her learn humor and then lie about the important parts. Unless he had been mistaken.

The young man closed the door to Gendo s office as he came in. With any luck, he would have...

"We didn t find anything, sir. It wasn t on him."

...found nothing at all. Gendo crossed his hands in front of his mouth, but did not smile. "It must be found."

"Yes." The young man stood even straighter, if that was indeed possible.

"This... we are fighting a holding action, here. Individual triumphs are meaningless unless you succeed in your task. You already know why."

"Yes."

Gendo inclined his head, angling the light off of his glasses. "Very good; continue the search. You will be informed if any other developments occur. Oh, and Kumon? Do try to find it before Seele does."

Ryuu Kumon saluted, rather crisply, and left the office. The force of his pivot lifted the short flashlight off of his chest, tipped a few strands of hair over his white headband, and strained the buckles on his harness.

Yes... with any luck, Kumon would succeed, and then Gendo could get on with his own mission. It galled him to have to rely on luck, but there really wasn t an alternative. Gendo had made his choice; everything rested on him obtaining the scroll before his masters, now.

Ranma hesitated, his hand freezing just short of the doorknob to Akane s room. Here, he was on the horns of a dilemma; should he knock or barge in? He had to talk to Akane, keeping this kind of thing from her was out of the question, but... she d just spent all night with Ukyou, and they d both have Tsubasa on their minds. He flashed back a month earlier, remembering Akane s reaction to another death. Heck, if this was the same, she d still be a weeping mess. Of course, this time she hadn t seen it, but...

So, she wouldn t appreciate him just coming in; she might need some time to compose herself, fix her hair, whatever. So, he should knock, and ask...

But she could say no. It wouldn t be the first time that she d refused to see him when she was upset. And this couldn t wait, could it? If he just opened the door and went in, she wouldn t have the chance to say no. He could speak his piece, see how she was doing, right away. Yeah, that would be it.

But if Akane got mad, she wouldn t listen... and then he wouldn t be able to tell how she was feeling. And then, when he dropped his own bombshell on her... oh, yeah, that wouldn t go over very well. She d clam up, and he d get mad, and one or the other of them would storm off in a huff...

So should he knock, or what? A stray thought entered Ranma s mind... what if she wasn t, um, decent? He flinched in conditioned reflex. How did anybody ever sort out this kind of mess, anyway? If his folks had gone through this sort of thing, it was a miracle that he d ever been born. He rested his head against the wood of the door...

thump

Akane s voice sounded from behind the door. "Who is it?"

"Um... ah, heck. It s me, Akane."

"Okay, come in." Her voice seemed a bit brighter...

And, just like that, he was in the room. Problem solved. You re a genius, Ranma.

Akane looked... well, she wasn t happy, maybe she had been crying earlier or something, but it wasn t showing now. Ranma took a quick peek around the room. No broken things, no wadded-up sheets... a tidy little pile in the corner, probably what Ukyou had used the night before. She was taking this well, he supposed.

"Yes, Ranma?" Akane smiled at him, although it didn t quite touch her eyes the way it sometimes did.

"Er, um..." Damn, now that he was in here, what was he going to say? "I, uh, heard what happened... are you okay?"

"I think so. It s just... I m not used to this kind of thing." Akane sat down on the edge of her bed, and Ranma perched himself on her desk s chair. "Ukyou s still a little torn up... you can guess why."

"Yeah." If anybody in Nerima could sympathize with Ukyou right now, it would be Akane... man, Tsubasa didn t deserve that. Sure, he was a cross-  
dressing perv, but he didn t deserve that.

Akane frowned. "Ranma, we ve got to do something about this."

"Do something? What, go around, look for the guy who did it?" Ranma snorted. "I m not sure I would want to find whatever could do that, you know."

"But we can t just sit here..." Akane looked at Ranma... her expression was a lot of things, anxiety, fear, but mostly worry. Worry about him, maybe.

Wait a minute... a little alarm bell went off in Ranma s head. "You really mean that, Akane?"

"What do you mean, do I mean that?" A touch of annoyance added itself to her face. "Did you think I meant something else?"

Okay, crunch time... "Akane, my mom just came in to see me."

"And?"

"She, uh, asked me if I d be an Eva pilot." There, it was out. Good.

Akane blinked a few times, eyes slightly bloodshot... well, she probably had been awake all night. "You... pilot... Ranma, what did you tell her?"

Okay, it wasn t quite out. "Um... I kinda said yeah."

"Kinda?" Ranma shuddered as Akane s eyebrow twitched. If he didn t defuse her, fast, she was going to blow up at him... "Why in the world would you say yes?"

"She told me about yesterday... Ryoga had some trouble out there. She said that he almost died, Akane. I dunno, maybe I can help out..." Ranma trailed off as he looked at her...

He had intended for his explanation to cool her down a bit, especially given what had just happened... but it had the opposite effect, like throwing gasoline on a kitchen fire. Akane now stood, no, loomed over him, glowing faintly blue, and Ranma was sure that she would whip out a blunt object any minute now.

The sound of her voice made Ranma jump a little... how could somebody that angry have such an icy tone? "So... piloting the robot was so dangerous, that Ryoga..." Okay, maybe not that icy after all. "the most durable, impossible-to-hurt person that either of us knows, almost gets himself killed... and you VOLUNTEER to do the same thing? You... you idiot!"

Hey, now... "Idiot? What the hell am I supposed to say? Sorry, Mom, can t help, you ll all just have to burn in hell ?"

"But..."

"Besides, if they screw up, we re dead either way, right? Right?" Ranma caught himself; the last couple of words had been shouted, and Akane had flickered out in the meantime. "I m sorry, I didn t mean that..."

"No, you re right..." Akane sat back down. "I don t like thinking like this. Kodachi s dead. Tsubasa s dead. Ryoga almost died. I... you re not going to do anything stupid out there, right?"

"Me? Do something stupid? Naww." They both smiled at that.

"Okay, then you can be a pilot."

"Gee, thanks. I don t remember asking permission..." Ranma chuckled. If he hadn t needed permission, he wouldn t have come up here in the first place. Probably. After all, she still needed cheering up.

Asuka covered her mouth to stifle a yawn. Mentally, she added "find social life" to her list of after-school activities. It would keep her out of things like this... "Tell me again why we re here?"

"Tactical review, Misato said." Rei kept her eyes on Ryoga, carefully making sure that he didn t wander. Again. The idiot had already made three wrong turns today. It didn't help that he wasn t doing it on purpose. Still an idiot.

"And why is it at Kensuke s house?"

"Simple... I didn t want to have to move all the tape." Kensuke bobbed along, a bit more bounce in his step than normal. "Right, Touji?"

"As if you could pick up that much, you toothpick. I d get stuck carrying them anyway."

Ryoga pointed ahead. "Here, I think it s over that hill... why is there a door in it?"

"I live in that hill, thank you! Jeez."

Asuka chuckled. It did look funny... a low mound of earth, with row houses to each side, and a circular wooden door set into the side. There was even a little window. Did they mow the roof? "I never knew you were a hobbit, Kensuke."

"You can tell by the hairy feet."

Kensuke snaked out an arm, snagging Touji s neck, and dragged him into a headlock. A quick noogie later, he turned the taller boy loose and rapped on the door. A moment later, he changed... his back straightened from its slouch and presented itself ramrod-straight, and his right arm snapped off a crisper salute than any that Asuka had seen thrown at NERV. Kensuke bellowed, "Permission to come aboard, SIR!"

From within the depths of the house, somebody called back, "Permission granted, Ensign. Come aboard."

"Ensign?" Asuka shared an incredulous look with the other two pilots. "Who s that?"

Kensuke nodded. "It s just my dad, that s all. Him and Gramps are pretty strict."

"Go ahead, tell em, Kensuke."

"Um, here, let s go downstairs..."

Touji snickered. "If you don t tell them, I will..."

"Okay, you win!" Kensuke started down a stairway, not even noticing the low ceilings inside the... house. Touji had to crouch to get through the door. "It s simple... I call Dad General , and Gramps is Admiral , and I m Ensign . We re all kind of military fans, you see."

"I d have never guessed."

After a bit of shifting of pillows and stacks of gun magazines, they all managed to situate themselves in Kensuke s room. Exactly how she had pictured it, Asuka thought... unkempt and cluttered. At least he had a big TV.

Kaji pulled the seat out, allowing Misato enough room to slide in. He chuckled... sometimes, he d let himself slide, and forget that underneath all of the silliness and alcohol, there lurked a truly devious mind. Case in point; she d packed off the kids to the gun freak s house under the pretense of a "strategy session". Admittedly, a large dose of robot anime might teach them a thing or two...

After wedging himself into one of the chairs, he motioned to a nearby waiter and quickly ordered two cups of coffee. Yes, now that she had a few free hours, they could spend some time together. Quality time.

"I feel like such a manipulator." Misato frowned, gesturing to the waiter for two beers.

So much for quality time. "Are you still worried about that?"

"Of course I m still worried about that! I just talked my own fucking kid into something that could get him killed! Hell, it would have been nicer if I d held a gun to his head!"

"I ll take that as a yes." He stopped smiling. Misato s expression... that face had been etched into his memory, not for this, but years ago. The same look of self-loathing that she d given him when... Kaji ruthlessly crushed that line of thinking. No sense in ripping himself up over it, again. "Did you have a choice?"

"No..." She barely glanced at the arriving drinks. "But..."

Kaji spoke over her objection. "Was it even your idea?"

"No! But..."

"Well, then, what could possibly be the problem?"

Misato picked up the mug of beer, lifted it, and drained a quarter of its contents. She slammed it back down to the table, sending the coaster spinning off into a corner of the bar, and shouted, "It s because I m too much like my god-damned father, that s why!"

The revelation sent a sip of beer down Kaji s windpipe, as he felt his eyes bugging out in surprise. "I thought that you thought that I was..."

"Don t you see? We re both the same! Him and his damned art and his damned marriages, and me and my damned job! Exactly the same way." She took another slug of beer and continued. "All these years... I told you off because you were just like him, but I m just like him too. Damn."

Kaji smiled. "I guess that means we re both the same, then." The effect on her was almost comic... her face turned red, her eyes opened all the way, and she started to stammer something... "Sorry... I didn t mean that."

"You... you, I can t believe that you said that!" Misato snorted into her beer. "This is great. We always end up doing this."

"Perhaps because we can?" Kaji s smile took in his ears, and he knew that he looked like an idiot, but he couldn t help himself.

Misato shrugged. "I can t handle this sober. Get some more beers, would you, Kaji?"

Tofu spat his coffee back into the cup. Not only was it cold, perfectly room temperature, but that sip had revealed little fuzzy bits that would be perfect for the treatment of certain diseases but less suited to keeping him awake, which was what he needed now.

It had been days since he had last slept, for that matter. He looked around, surveying the dusty and infrequently-visited Tokyo-3 University library stacks. For weeks, now, he d neglected his practice, instead searching through every reference book he could find. It was just like his college days, the same feeling of being on the verge of a realization without knowing exactly what it was.

He laid his head down on the table, on the only spot not covered with books. Books on many subjects, some of which he was surprised that he d needed... the books on modern applications of medical chiropractic methods, of course, but he d never dreamed he d need translations of the Kabbalah, or articles on theoretical cloning techniques, or fragments of manuals detailing lost martial arts styles. The technical journals for personality-transfer protocols in next-generation computer systems and abnormal psychology manuals were important, as well; he d had to essentially teach himself the basics of the disciplines just to understand the theory he was busy assembling.

She had been different, that girl... not just albino or blue hair, but fundamentally different. And Tofu wasn t going to rest until he found out how... well, in fact he was rather comfortable, and he was soooo sleepy... why thank you, Kasumi, I would like another...

The doctor drifted off into sleep, still clutching the mug of coffee.

Asuka pressed the "close door" button on the elevator. Those two could just walk up or wait for the next car. She couldn t believe that she d been dragged off to watch hours and hours of robot anime. Boring, stupid, boring, childish, boring, infantile... had she mentioned boring? And she didn t dare fall asleep, not while she was in that Kensuke s bedroom. He sure as heck wasn t getting any elsewhere.

The whole afternoon had been a waste of time. None of those things were anything like an Eva, none of the enemies were anything like an Angel, and there weren t enough cute guys to go around, except in that one.

She was so busy working up righteous anger and thinking of cutting remarks to use on Misato that she barely noticed that Tarou had been stretched out on the couch before flopping down there herself. "And now YOU RE in the way! Shouldn t you be chasing perverts, freeloader?"

Tarou cocked one eye open. "You re pissed. What happened, your red wagon break down?"

"NO, I just had to spend hours in close quarters with Wonder Girl and the three Stooges. Wouldn t you be ticked? HEY! What do you mean by that?" Asuka stood over Tarou s recumbent form, looking him straight in the (slightly lidded) eye.

"Ah. I ll chalk all this up to extenuating circumstances , then, and forget it. Thank me later." Tarou s eye closed again, and he half turned away from her.

Asuka seethed. "Hey, I m yelling at you! At least have the decency to get mad!"

"G way, I m sleeping." Tarou made a snore-like noise.

"Look, if I ve got to go through all kinds of hell, I m taking the rest of you with me!"

Faster than she could see, Tarou had sat up, turned around, and placed his nose precisely two centimeters from hers. "You want going through hell, little girl? I ve been hunting the same damn guy for over a decade. He s a loathsome, twisted pervert, and I d be doing humanity a favor if I killed him, but first I ve got to get him to change my twice-damned name, or I ll be called Pantyhose for the rest of my life. I m even willing to stay in this technological pile of waste you call a city, with a drunkard and one of my other least favorite people. So can it about your rotten day!"

"Well, aren t you special!" Asuka was gratified at the look of surprise on the older boy s face. "All you have to deal with is a bit of teasing, and you can t even take that! I would KILL to have your problem!"

"Really? What makes you think you ve had it that much worse than me?"

Asuka closed her eyes, not thinking about it, she remembered the pain always the pain and the loss but not why not what don t remember don t remember... ha. She couldn t remember.

Something must have changed in her face, though, because Tarou had pulled back a bit. "Uh... okay, sure. I don t want to hear your sob story anyway."

"Good." Asuka smiled slyly at him. "You didn t say it was bad, living here with Rei."

"It s not." Tarou shrugged his shoulders. "Heck, if I was blind, I would never know she was here. She knows how to stay quiet."

Her smile was distinctly less shy, now. "And... you didn t say anything about me, either."

"Must have been an oversight." Tarou chuckled to himself.

"Yeah, must have." Asuka decided to go to her room and nap until dinner. After all, even if she was having a nightmare, it would be better than remembering... what? She didn t think that she wanted to know.

As soon as Tarou heard the sound of Asuka s door closing, he smacked his forehead with his palm. "Damn, I am an idiot sometimes..." She had been right there, and so close, and even reminding her of his name hadn t turned her away.

This was one of the things that the pervert had denied him, that his name had sealed off: conversation with a woman. Almost a woman, anyway. One that knew who he was and couldn t care less, who wasn t intimidated every time he sneezed, who had some strength in her own right. Even if it was piloting one of those damned contraptions.

He d said something, though, something that had completely changed the whole mood. Something had caught in her eyes, and for a second they d looked straight through him... what had he said? Something about her having it worse than him. Which wasn t possible, of course, but maybe she thought so? Could be. Tarou knew that he didn t really understand women.

Who did understand women, for that matter? He d seen fem-boy mire himself in so deeply, what with his fianc es and all, that he was screwed no matter what he did. Pig-boy was just a babbling idiot around girls. Who else, who else... most of the Nerima crowd were idiots, he couldn t trust them for advice. Happosai? Tarou s lip curled in a sneer. He d die first. Damn it, didn t he know anybody who knew about women?

Inspiration came to him. That guy, the one that the drunk likes. Stubble-guy. Yeah, he might know something. He wasn t putting his foot in his mouth every time he opened it, that was for sure.

Damn, this would be easier if he had a nice, normal name. Then he wouldn t have been in this situation in the first place, where he was attracted to somebody little better than a girl, somebody that would think he was a complete fool if she found out. Tarou sure felt like a complete fool.

Ryoga would have crossed his arms and snorted in disgust, if he had vocal cords and arms. As it was, traveling while suspended from his bandana as Rei headed home was embarrassing enough. He wasn t about to oink and provoke another- bout of laughter.

It had to have been Asuka s fault. She d closed the elevator door, and he d taken off towards the stairwell. Ryoga could move faster than any elevator in existence, right? He d even managed to avoid the broken water main three blocks away. If that truck hadn t gone through the puddle, he d already be upstairs.

At least they were back in the apartment building now. Rei had almost reached the elevator. In fact, he guessed that she had pressed the button, because she was turning away from it, and leaning up against the wall...

"Ryoga, your backpack is too heavy," Rei said as she eased back against the wall. It wasn t bad, really, now that she could rest the weight up against the wall... but he hadn t packed it straight. Where was that sound coming from? Kind of a grunting...

Ryoga gasped as Rei stopped crushing him against the wall and brought him around to look her in the face. For a second, her expression was worried. He preferred that to what followed, which was an ear-splitting grin interspersed with laughter. Insensitive jerk, he thought. She didn t have to laugh that hard. It wasn t even really funny.

"Kaji, re you ash drunk ash I am?" Misato stumbled, half-pitching forward before she was stopped by her arm around him, and his arm around her. "Caush I haven t been thish drunk in... in... lon time."

He laughed, and nodded, his head bobbing down to his chest. "I dunno... you drove home okay. I mus be more drunk."

Well, maybe he was more drunk. Probably. Misato couldn t make herself care too much. She was too worried about not falling down as they went up the front steps to the apartment building. "Hey! Hol up your end."

The two staggered down the hallway, trying to find the elevator. They found the manager s office, a closet full of cleaning supplies, and the stairwell before Misato remembered which hall she had to take.

As they walked sort of down the hallway, Kaji s head came up. "Mi... Mi... hon?"

"Yeah?"

"I m not gonna go home t night... I m seeing t ings."

"Izzat Rei laughing? Sounds like Rei laughing." Misato took her eyes off her feet and looked toward the door. "Yep, it s Rei laughing at Ryoga."

"Oh, good, I m not seeing t ings. I m just crazy."

Akane rolled over, twisting her coverlet into a snarled configuration. She couldn t sleep. How could she sleep? Just when things were maybe starting to work out... well, if you didn t count people you knew getting killed, and that was another- worry... her idiot fianc decided that life wasn t dangerous enough and signed up with NERV.

It really didn t help matters that he was right, and probably doing the right thing for once in his idiot life. She couldn t even get angry at him, really. And getting angry at reality wasn t all that satisfying... where can you hit it to make it hurt? Well, maybe she did have to let Ranma do it, but she sure as heck didn t have to like it.

Why him, anyway? Couldn t they find somebody else to do it? Preferably somebody that Akane didn t know, of course. Must be hard to find Jusenkyo-cursed combat personnel. Wait a minute... NERV didn t have- any Jusenkyo-cursed combat personnel. They had Ryoga, and Rei, and Asuka. Ranma said that they got away with it because they were fourteen, and that he didn t know why...

No way- Ryoga was fourteen. Heck, he was Ranma s age.

Akane felt a sneaking suspicion form in the back of her mind, and she didn t like it at all. If Ryoga wasn t fourteen, then that meant... for some odd reason she kept seeing an image of him standing at the mouth of a cave, during a rainstorm, and... changing. Into what?

But that was ridiculous. She d seen- Ryoga get drenched with cold water before. It was, um, in the middle of a fight with Ranma? No... it was the time when he was chasing after her at the water park. The time when Ranma had been fooling around, trying to get that hussy Shampoo s waterproof soap.

Waterproof, Jusenkyo-curse-blocking soap.

Once she started wondering, it didn t take long to figure out what Ryoga s curse was. And here Akane had thought, all this time, that Ranma called him P-chan just to tick him off. Which was correct, really, just for a different reason than she d thought.

Why the hell hadn t Ranma told her?! She nearly bit her lip in two when she thought of it. It would be just like that jerk to hide something like that. Heck, the two of them probably thought it was funny, Ryoga sneaking into her bedroom and cuddling up with her every night.

But Ranma told- her about how Ryoga felt, a while back. And he had been serious, and Ryoga had been too, and neither of them had mentioned a word about little black pigs. Besides, Ryoga wouldn t do something like that. He was too shy for his own good, really.

Then again, P-chan had a horrible sense of direction, too.

Aargh. The whole thing is silly, Akane thought. I ll just ask Ryoga straight out, the next time I see him, and he ll say no and we ll both laugh at what a moron I am. Or he ll say yes, and I ll crush his skull in. But he wouldn t say yes, right? It was silly. Akane just wished she could get that picture out of her head.

Briefly, she imagined the NERV people asking Saotome-san to become a pilot. She drifted off asleep, still chuckling.

Tarou inhaled, sucking sweet night air into his nostrils. Sure, it had a bunch of car exhaust and other things that he really didn t feel like thinking about, and smelled slightly better (but not much) than an open midden, but it was fresher than the air in the daytime. Some kind of weather pattern thing, likely. And it was certainly a lot more pleasant outside at night.

The door to the stairwell opened, and Tarou heard somebody walk out onto the roof. Shuffle, really. "Hello..."

"Hiya, kid. C mon, let s talk for a bit." Misato leaned up against the railing, putting most of her weight against it.

Tarou rolled his eyes. He really didn t need this kind of thing tonight, he wasn t in the mood... "You re too drunk. Come back later."

"Naw, I m mostly sober by now. I ll have a hell of a hangover in an hour, and I gotta ask you a question."

From the expression on her face, Misato wasn t going to leave him alone until he gave her an answer... "Ask, then."

She nodded. "Tarou, y wanna pilot an Evangelion?"

For a second, he thought that she was joking. She wasn t laughing, though, or even smiling or even looking like she d like to be smiling for that matter. Tarou took a deep breath, closed his hanging jaw, and snorted once for effect. "You are- drunk. What makes you even think that it s worth asking?"

"I m not drunk. Seriously." Misato shrugged. "Gendo told me to ask. Can you help us out?"

"No." Tarou sat down, his back to the railing, and folded his hands. "I would think that I d made it quite clear that I don t much like those things, you know."

"I had to ask, though. Ah, I figured you d say as much. Wimp."

"Do I look like an idiot? You re not going to insult me into doing it, after all. Besides, a guy can get killed in one of those things. It s not my fight."

Misato looked up, fixing her eyes on a half moon, and responded. "It s everybody s fight. We screw up, everybody dies. It s that simple."

"I don t screw up." Tarou almost chortled. "But I ve got another problem, and I don t think you can help me out. I d just get tied up in all the stuff that you do, and the old perv would go along his merry way. I m here for Happosai, and that s all."

Misato s face screwed into a frown. "That s awful small of you, Tarou."

"Yeah, I know. I have to do this, though, before I worry about other things. You know that." Tarou rose to his feet and stretched. "I suppose this is good-bye?"

He could almost hear- her blinking. "What the heck are you talking about? I thought you were here for the perv."

Well, now, this was unexpected... "You mean, you re still going to let me live at your place, even though I m not going to pilot your toy?"

"Yeah, sure. What the hell. Who knows, maybe you ll change your mind or something." Misato gestured behind her. "We ve been okay so far."

Both of them sat for a minute, wordlessly enjoying the night s breeze and sky. Tarou s thoughts drifted from her proposition back to his other worry, the one that drove him out here in the first place. "Hey, Misato?"

"Yeah?"

"What s wrong with Asuka? Something happened to her."

Misato chuckled. "Worried about her?"

Tarou felt his face redden. Damned if he was going to lie to her, though. "I think so."

"There was something ugly in her file, way back when she was a kid."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Misato exhaled, sighing deeply. "Her mom was one of our test pilots, back then. Heck, it was before I signed up myself... something went wrong, and she came out of Unit 02 without her marbles. Crazy, you know?" When Tarou didn t respond, she continued. "Eventually, she killed herself, and Asuka found the body. That s all I know."

"Rough." Tarou winced. He d had a lonely life, thanks to Happosai s cursed whim, and there were a lot of things that he hadn t been fond of, but he d never lost anybody that he d cared about. Except his own mom, he supposed. He was still pretty young at that point, and he couldn t remember that well. Not that he wanted to remember; the Impact had been hard for everybody.

"Yeah, real rough. I wouldn t ask her about it, though." Misato smiled. "You ve really got it bad, don t you?"

"Shut up. I wouldn t know."

Aoba bolted straight up out of his bed, nearly hitting his head against the headboard. "It s three AM! What in hell..." Somebody was pounding at his front door, as if they intended to tear it down with their bare hands. He threw on a shirt and shorts and went to see who it was, ready to kick the offender a new orifice.

"SHIGERU! Thank goodness! I, I can t get it off! Help!"

Aoba s mouth fell open at the sight on his doorstep. A haggard Hyuuga stood there, still dressed in his work clothes, and bowed under the weight of... wow, how did he rate a piece like that? She was nice, round in all the right... oh, she was that girl that had crashed the party, the one that Hyuuga had flipped out the window. "What are you talking about, Makoto? Just ask her nicely." Privately, he asked himself why Hyuuga was upset. It wasn t like he was getting any from Misato...

"I TRIED that! She just won t take no for an answer! She even went after me in the shower!" Hyuuga frantically pried at the girl s grip, with as much affect as somebody digging at a concrete wall with a spoon. "Oh, here, lemme introduce her. Shigeru, this is Shampoo. Shampoo, this is Shigeru Aoba, a friend from work. Now can you let go, please?"

Shampoo took the opportunity to nuzzle her new fianc again. He really was entertaining, and so much like Ranma! Perhaps fate had done her a favor in finding him. "Wo ai ni," she murmured into his shoulder.

"I ve got a crowbar in the back. Gimme a second." Aoba turned around and walked into his kitchen, flipping on the coffeemaker. It was going to be another long night...

End of part 18

Questions and comments go to akent 


	19. Chapter 19

"Lookit this place, will ya?"

The two men started sifting through the apartment, throwing aside various clothing and costumes. The place was stuffed to the brim with them, closets crammed to overflowing and long racks in every room, with every type and design and prop that you could possibly use to conceal yourself, plus a few extra.

After a time, the men determined that the elaborate dress-up was just that, and indeed was not concealing what they had come to find. A waste of time, and probably a bad lead as well, but they couldn't afford to leave any stones unturned, right?

The first one of the two, a slight and short fellow, had just put his hand on the door when he heard a sound in the hallway. Immediately, both men drew their guns and nodded to each other. They'd be ready.

"DON'T MOVE!"

Ryuu Kumon rubbed his hand on the wall, leaving a dark red streak behind. The Seele men hadn't found it here, that was sure. A cursory search had told him that they had no scrolls or scroll-like objects on them, nor anything they could have transcribed the contents with.

It took longer to search the apartment himself. Never trust your adversary to do his job correctly, his mentor had said. Remember, everybody screws up, even the other guy. It took twenty minutes before he determined that there honestly hadn't been anything to find, aside from the huge stack of unopened and returned love letters. One went inside a pocket. A lead was a lead, after all.

The rest, he soaked in kerosene, as well as the carpets and the costumes and the bodies. Shame, really, the young man thought. Some of those dresses were cute...

-  
Paradise Lost, part 19 Fan Fiction by Andy Kent All characters created Gainax or Rumiko Takahashi -

Ranma wasn't happy. It had not been a good day.

It had started so well, too. He'd caught a train downtown, avoiding a car trip spent in close quarters with Tarou and Ryoga and his mother. It was his favorite kind of day, warm and clear and sunny. He'd taken a couple of extra minutes along the way just to enjoy the view.

Then he arrived at NERV, and his good day went straight to hell. First, half a dozen unpleasant-looking and surly guys had taken turns asking him questions, about boring stuff like politics and his religious leanings and his marks in school. Satisfied, they'd given him a small card with a NERV stamp and his picture on it. The camera guy must have been trying really hard to catch him in mid-sneeze like that.

After that, Dr. Akagi and her pet goon had spent another hour poking, prodding, and pouring hot and cold water over him. Then they stuck a couple of widgets in his hair and stuffed him in some kind of torpedo, and he was still there, after four hours of sitting in some kind of thick liquid and being told to "concentrate".

/"Try harder, Ranma."/

He snorted. "Try what? You still haven't told me how to do this."

The voice of Akagi's short (if cute) assistant came through the speakers. /"We, ah, never had to before. It always just sort of worked..."/

The whole thing was stupid. If they wanted him to pilot a giant robot, why weren't they putting him in a giant robot to start with? He was sure that he could figure it out, given a few minutes.

/"Funny,"/ said Akagi, /"Ryoga never had a problem with synchronizing."/

Ranma gritted his teeth. No way was he going to get shown up by Ryoga, even at something as dumb as this.

"Well, that's a little better, I suppose." Ritsuko leaned back in her chair, sipping at a fresh cup of coffee.

Maya didn't agree. "Sixteen percent is better?"

"Well, he was only at twelve before..."

It was decidedly odd, she mused. Even dead cold and untrained, and with no software written around his 'mind', he should still be able to log twenty percent, maybe twenty-five. At this rate, he wouldn't prove suitable for a pilot at all.

"I guess so, sempai." Maya turned back to the monitors, watching the young man strain with the effort of synchronization.

/"Well, we thought that maybe he'd do better as, um, a she."/

Gendo nodded, one hand cocked to hold the handset to his ear. "Was it effective, Dr. Akagi?"

/"Only partially. She... um, the subject is still having some problems synchronizing. If you want my opinion, we got a bad catch from the Marduk Institute. I'm not sure we can work around this, not well enough to get her... um, the subject combat-ready."/

If he'd wanted her opinion, he would have asked... but she did have a point. "There is external augmentation available. You'll have it in a day or two."

/"External...? Never mind, you'll tell me later. Make sure you tell the Marduk people that we're not happy with them; I don't have the time for this."/

"You'll make time, Dr. Akagi. It's not like any Tom, Dick, or Harry could pilot the Evangelions."

/"Understood."/ Ritsuko's tone, colder than usual, marked the end of the phone call before he heard the 'click' of the dead line.

"Fuyutsuki, Ritsuko says that she's not happy with you."

"Har har, commander."

"We'll need Kaji's little toy after all, it seems. Have him retrieve it immediately."

"Anything else?"

"I want Kumon's report as soon as it's received." That was a lot more important at this point than new pilot training. He would trade an Eva, with pilot, for a report of success from Ryuu. 02, anyway.

"Understood."

Misato went down a mental checklist, checking off a finger with each item. Get Ranma cleared, done. Run Ranma through a synch test, done. Have Ranma fill out necessary paperwork, done.

Next up... she needed to have him run through the standard physical combat evaluation... or maybe not. Supposedly, he was as good as Ryoga, and she didn't want to have him accidentally murder an instructor or anything. Gendo had called and told her to hold off on fitting her son with a plug suit. Probably, they were trying to whip up something that could survive multiple sex changes without sagging or something.

That left just one item, she thought, as she walked into the ninth hangar.

"Ranma, meet Unit 03. Unit 03, this is Ranma."

"Jeez, mom... it can't hear you." Ranma scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Looks cool, though."

Misato had to agree. 03 had been put together by the Americans, with their budget consciousness, and thus lacked the elaborate sensor suites of 00 or 02 or the fanciful horn of 01. What was left was a streamlined, anthropomorphic head unit. Combined with the plain matte black finish, it looked rather stylish, in a utilitarian-anonymous-  
death-machine sort of way.

"So, when do I get to fight an Angel, huh?"

"Not so fast..." Misato rolled her eyes. "We still have to train you to use it, you know. With any luck, we won't need you at all."

Ranma shrugged. "You'll need me. After all, I am the best fighter you've got."

"Not yet, you're not. And GET OFF that rail! Jeez! What the heck would you do if you fell off?" Misato grabbed a handful of her son's ponytail and hauled him back onto the catwalk.

A sleepy Hyuuga wandered up behind the two, handed a file to Misato with a garbled "grafvel fazz", and yawned. "Sleep... I need sleep..."

"Really?" Ranma cocked his head at the man. "You look like you could use a nap... hey, I know that look..."

Hyuuga grabbed Ranma by the shoulders, eye to bloodshot eye. "She won't go away... I don't hate her, but she just won't go away..."

"Huh?"

Ranma and Hyuuga turned towards Misato, both echoing, "Don't ask," before the older man (older? Not much older. Still young...) released her son and continued to stagger along the gantry.

Kaji nodded, and his team moved into action.

Years ago, he'd stumbled across this temple, hidden high in the mountains of Hokkaido. He had been following a story, a rumor, half old wives' tale and half legend, of a powerful artifact. The warrior which gained possession of this item would become redoubtable in an instant, as his full potential for combat would be realized instantly.

He'd found the artifact. And then he'd left it, barely escaping with his life as the chief monk found Kaji with his twin daughters. And here it was, after sixteen years. A bit of the old world lodged in the new.

Eight men 'borrowed' from NERV's security division went with Kaji, forming a loose ring, as they ascended to the monastery. With any luck, nine men with guns would prove to be enough to overawe a bunch of isolated priests. Failing that, the implicit threat of retribution might produce some results. Failing that... well, he'd left a note for Misato on his nightstand.

The courtyard of the temple was empty, completely deserted, with rakes and brooms discarded. Kaji motioned, and his men followed him towards the doors to the great hall, which had been left standing open. A few leaves blew across the ground at their feet.

The inside of the hall held no further sign of life. Huge beams supported a roof tall enough to hold a circus, and wood panels alternated with traditional rice-paper for each wall. It smelled of... wood polish, Kaji thought. Church, without the candles or incense.

The point man raised his hand, and the entire group froze as a wizened old man, holding a box tucked under one arm, strode in from the rear door of the hall. Before anyone went for a gun, he stopped, raised his free arm, and snapped his fingers once.

Immediately, dozens of robed monks, all with shaven heads, crowded the hall. There was some confusion, as the monks rappelling from the ceiling crossed paths with those bursting through the wall panels, but in seconds they were organized in a loose circle around Kaji, all of them holding some kind of staff or polearm and brandishing it in what could be called a threatening manner.

The first monk coughed. "Simple courtesy, gentlemen, would have you remove your shoes before entering the hall."

Kaji looked around, noting the shattered state of the decorations, and the heavy work shoes worn by the monks, and smiled.

"You did not come here today to soil our floors. Speak your request, and begone!"

"You have the relic here." Kaji gestured to the box. "Even here, surely, you have heard of our nation's plight. It is essential for our defense that you surrender the relic. I assure you that it will be used properly." Most likely it wouldn't, at least not as it was intended to be used, but he couldn't say that.

Monks, obviously half-crazed and bloodthirsty, suddenly broke out into smiles, and a few started sweating. Kaji's hand inched toward his pistol, although in a crowd like this it wouldn't be enough to save his life. He felt the sense of his men change, too, as they prepared for death.

"You demand the relic?" The old monk glanced to his right, where a monk was approaching with what looked like a swiveling chair. With a curt shake of the head, the younger monk was dismissed, and the elder turned back to Kaji. "You assure me that it must be surrendered, for the good of the nation?"

"Yes."

Kaji caught one monk looking at him and flashing a thumbs-up gesture. Odd, that...

"Then... I surrender the relic. Take it, and defend the nation."

The tension drained out of the room like a pricked balloon. "What, that's it? You'll give it to us?" Kaji laughed to himself and stepped forward, accepting the box. "That was easy."

"One of the things that life has taught me, my son," said the old man, his face crinkling into a smile, "is that there is a proper time to bow and say yes."

Kaji bowed, and said "Yes."

Halfway across the courtyard, on their way back to their transport, they heard what could have been rapid gunfire. Spinning around, dropping to the cobblestones, and finding various cover, the men looked back... to see the monks spraying each other and the hall with some kind of liquid, contained in long, thin bottles, and howling to each other at the top of their lungs. The older monk stood among the spray, his hands uplifted to the sky and his face rapturous.

One of the agents scratched the back of his head. "Some kind of purification ceremony?"

"Maybe. Let's go." Kaji motioned to the gate.

Asuka kicked her feet, idly looking from her perch on the roof's railing, and sighed to herself. It hadn't been a good morning. She'd mentally assumed adult status years ago, after all. Sure, she was physically not yet grown, but that was a matter that time would resolve, and she'd certainly managed to get others to avoid treating her like the child she was not. She could certainly do without the physical indignities involved.

Except, of course, that she couldn't, and there wasn't really much choice in the matter. Get older, or get dead, right? And Asuka had no intentions of getting dead. There was an Eva to pilot.

Behind her, Tarou grunted as he finished his stretches. She had asked him why he did them, intending to tease him a bit over his... er... zealousness... and he responded with a mock-serious lecture on the necessity of proper preparation before strenuous exercise. After she faked falling asleep, he chuckled, letting her know that he recognized the self-parody as well as she did.

Perhaps there were some beneficial side-effects to getting older, right?

"Neh, Tarou," she asked.

The older boy sat down, with his back against the rail, facing away from Asuka. "Yeah?"

"What're you thinking about?"

"Happosai." His voice roughened on the word, as if he was trying to use it to strike sparks. "I'll find him today."

Asuka snorted in disapproval. "Why do you even bother with the pervert? Just change your name without him, okay? Who cares what people call you, anyway?" His... insecurity really got on her nerves. For somebody that was so confident in himself, this insistence on a little thing like a name was disturbing. It made him... less.

Tarou's hair blew in the afternoon wind, causing small droplets of sweat to sparkle off in a way that was just different enough from the average shojo anime to avoid triggering Asuka's gag reflex. There wasn't anything romantic about the frustrated expression on his face, though. "That's not the point... it's not about the name."

"You sure, Pantyhose?"

"AARGH!" He banged a palm against his forehead. "Okay, it's about the name, but I can't win that way. I could go and change my name, right? If I'd never said anything, nobody around here would ever have known what I was called. Except him."

"Yeah, so?" Asuka's shrug took him by surprise. "He's a dried-up idiot. Who cares what he thinks?"

Tarou nodded. "I don't, really. Sure, he deserves to die, but I don't have this inner need to do it personally. But I'd know, right? I'd know that he really won, and I chickened out."

"There is that, I guess. So why not do both? Just call yourself something else and THEN go beat the snot out of him."

"I'd slack off." He rolled his eyes. "This way, it stays fresh in my mind, so I stay in top form."

Yeah, like picking at a scab, Asuka thought. "You're an idiot, do you know that?"

"Definitely. But it's me, you know? It wouldn't do any good being any other way. At least I'm not lying to myself, now."

"So, what're you going to do when it's over?"

Tarou blinked. "Over?"

"Yeah, you know, when the old fart dies, or you beat him, or whatever. Over." Asuka narrowed her gaze. "You did have some kind of idea what you'd do afterwards, right?"

"Um..." The next drop of sweat that fell out of Tarou's hair weighed half a pound and hit the roof with a wet 'splat' sound. "I'll probably try to take over the world. I'll need a challenge..."

"Sounds like fun."

"So, how about you?"

Asuka nearly pitched backwards off the rail. "What about ME?"

Tarou raised one hand and ticked off points as he went. "Well, you're a pilot, right? You fight Angels. Sooner or later, they'll either run out of Angels, or figure out a better way to fight them than in an Eva... or you'll just get killed, but in that case you don't have to worry. So, what then?"

"Won't happen. How would we know if there weren't going to be any more? They'd keep us around, just in case. Besides, what else do you do with surplus Evangelions? So I'll always be a pilot."

"Hrm... you could probably take over the world with a few Evangelions..."

Asuka rolled her eyes expressively. "Oh, sure, go out there and take everybody on. I'll be laughing when they cut your power cord."

"I didn't say it would work, just that it might work." Tarou chuckled. "So, you'll be a pilot no matter what, huh?"

Asuka nodded. "I suppose so. You say you have to hunt down the pervert? Well, I have to pilot. It makes me what I am. For me, you know?"

"I can accept that." Tarou raised his arms behind his head, stretching his shoulders. "You have to be what you have to be."

A stray thought flitted through Asuka's mind. "So, if I have to be a pilot, and you have to fight the lech... what does that make Rei?"

"A very nice person."

"Excuse me?"

"Hey, she doesn't call me Pantyhose, unlike a certain strudel girl that I know..."

"Ha!"

A third voice cut into the conversation. "Hmm? Strudel, huh? Flaky on the outside and warm in the middle... How sweet it is!"

Asuka blinked, and noticed several things in a very short span of time. Her balance had shifted forward, bringing her dangerously close to the edge of the rail. She could smell something, part silk, part... age, she supposed. And a midget dressed in a thief's suit had perched in her lap and was attempting to nuzzle her chest.

Instinct took the place of rational thought, and Asuka screamed as she pitched backwards to fall on the roof. "Kyaaaaa! Getitoffamegetitoffame aaaaaaa!"

At the sound of "Kya", Tarou's head swiveled around, fast enough to sweep his bangs in front of his vision. After the moment's distraction, his eyes locked on to the shrunken form of Happosai, in the midst of his other favorite hobby, and Tarou clenched his fists.

"YOUUUUU! I WILL KILL YOU!"

Happosai looked up, idly wondering who would be cruel enough to interrupt an old man that was so obviously enjoying himself. After all, she was great. A bit young by his standards, but curved in all of the right places and with more bosom than any connoisseur could require. And, for once, she wasn't a violent maniac! Ah, life was truly grand.

The shouting boy moved, and his face snapped into sharp relief in the mind's eye. Happosai grinned, releasing his friend and perching himself on the railing, smiling as the boy hurtled past him. Fast, this boy, fast enough to appear to move normally when the rest of the world had slowed to the speed of flowing molasses, but it wouldn't have been any fun otherwise.

Girl watching could wait. A little while. After all, Happosai hardly suffered from a lack of beautiful company, and it certainly wasn't every day that he got a chance to torment his young ward Pantyhose.

"You... It ends, Happosai. Today!"

Tarou's anger flowed off of him, forming a sheen in the air that was easily detected by any ki sensitive, and as familiar to Happosai as Tarou's features. It wavered, today, burning a much deeper 'red' than normal. Obviously he had something else on his mind than his cute nickname.

Two and two quickly added to four, and Happosai laughed. "Oh, is that how it is, Pantyhose? I didn't mean to horn in on your action, Pantyhose. You know I do everything I can to help you follow in my footsteps, Pantyhose."

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!" Tarou leapt forward, aiming a kick at Happosai's face. It was faster than his earlier attack, but still easily avoided. The angle was bad, though, and Happosai felt a twinge of annoyance that he could no longer ogle the girl and taunt Pantyhose at the same time from his new position on the rail.

The kick pulverized a concrete roof support, twisting the rail out over the city's street, and Tarou almost skidded off the roof himself. The aura had more flavor now. Embarrassment, frustration, hatred all flowed around his head and body. Happosai clucked to himself. The boy was good, as good as any of his other playthings, but he made mistakes! And Happosai was so good at forcing people to make mistakes.

Tarou came up from his crouch, with his back to Happosai and his shoulders out of proper line. He had something, probably a loose chunk of debris, that he'd throw as a distraction. Happosai sensed the change in the ki, took a short step back, and readied himself to deflect the projectile. Tarou's shoulders twisted, and he whirled around...

A length of the railing, loosened by Tarou's kick, tore free from its mountings and swung at Happosai's head. It was a surprise, yes, and definitely not in Pantyhose's normal repertoire, but Happosai easily shifted to a defensive position before the impact. The blow did no real damage, but did suffice to launch the aged martial artist like a well-  
hit home run.

Happosai perched on an awning of the adjacent building and dusted his shirt off. Pantyhose was really up for this fight, it seemed. He wouldn't win - his lack of concentration was his problem, just as the easy availability of gorgeous women was Happosai's own - but he'd certainly be a lot of fun.

One dried hand patted a shirt pocket, removing powdered concrete dust, and brushed across an old smoking pipe. Immediately, Happosai pulled out the pipe and held it to one eye, noting the stress crack in its exquisitely polished shaft. There must have been even more force behind that last blow than he'd thought.

Now, why did Pantyhose have to do that? Happosai liked to own nice things, and it wasn't nearly as fun to find another pipe as it was to add to his private collection. The now-flawed pipe snapped in his grip, and Happosai reluctantly summoned some of his own energy. Now, he had to teach the boy a lesson in respect for his elders. It was for the boy's own good, of course, which sucked all of the fun right out of the idea.

Tarou snorted, flinging the loose railing down into the street below. He could see Happosai's image distort, wavering between his Lilliputian self and his battle aura. The coot wasn't acting properly. He should have run, or at least taunted some more. Something had convinced Happosai that this fight, finally, was the real thing.

Tarou smiled, and did not care. Reason told him to wait, to be conservative, to let Happosai wear himself down with his oh-so-scary posturing. It didn't matter. He wanted this fight, wanted... an end? A resolution. He wanted to -hurt- his tormentor.

One long stride took him to the parapet, and he propelled himself between the buildings, aiming a kick at the center of the mass of energy. For an instant, the construct shifted, and then Tarou shot past, his foot so close - so close! - that he would have sworn that he had taken hairs out of the old man's moustache. Concrete turned to powder and fragments as Tarou's kick pulverized the wall, and he rebounded again, looking for a foothold to renew his attack.

Happosai's face twisted into a scowl, and he gestured with his arm. Tarou could barely see the power move, and the impact took him full in the chest. He was lifted, tossed like a rag doll, and traveled three or four city blocks before he managed to orient himself in the air. Quickly, Tarou scanned the ground, looking for his adversary. Funny... it should be more difficult to hide a huge battle aura, he thought.

The glint of the sun dimmed suddenly, and Tarou swiveled. From above! The pervert's attack struck, a blow of sheer spiritual power, with the force of a freight train. The world blurred, and then Tarou rose from a shattered crater in the concrete, one entire side screaming in pain. Too fast. He hadn't even had the time to register the impact.

Now, Tarou sneered, at himself. Stupid. He'd been fighting like fem-  
boy, jumping around and letting his opponent have his way with him. He probably wouldn't win a direct man-to-man confrontation with the withered perv, not fairly. Why? He wasn't used to making a fool of himself...

It wasn't important. If Happosai didn't mind making a spectacle of things, though... why should he? Tarou nodded, set his mark, and shot straight for Happosai.

"Ha! You aren't even coming close!" crowed Happosai, as he nimbly danced out of the path of the attack.

Tarou ruthlessly suppressed the temptation to respond with the standard clich line and settled for an evil chuckle as he crushed a nearby fire hydrant, the true target of his strike. Immediately, he was drenched in unpleasantly cool water.

Bringing his oversized paws together, Tarou shouted, "All right! Let's go," and started in towards his foe. It wasn't precisely stupid, after all. Happosai never seemed to have a problem interpreting Tarou's various hoots, gronks, and bellows.

Asuka gripped the remaining rail, trying to warp the metal in her hands. That... that... she was having problems formulating words for her rage at the old man.

It wasn't the grope, exactly. Oh, he'd die for having the audacity to grope her, but the same penalty would be exacted from any man who made the same mistake. It wasn't shame. No, it was shame, but not of his act. Asuka was ashamed of her reaction, much more than any physical act could have caused. She was in control! She had to be in control!

"Kyaa, huh? So, I'm just a silly girl who needs bailing out whenever some old pervert decided to stick his hand in the cookie jar, huh?" Asuka barely saw the action, a thirty-foot-tall dwarf battling a gigantic, tentacled, winged minotaur, through the red haze in her eyes. She raised her voice from a mutter, shouting, "I'll KILL you for that, you... you PERVERT! You hear that?! I'll kill you MYSELF!"

Aoba idly pecked at his keyboard. "Umm... Captain... we've got a request to intervene from the Tokyo-3 police department."

"What? You're joking me." Misato tapped her lip with one finger. "Do they think we're a riot squad?"

"Apparently, there's some kind of giant monster battle going on downtown." Aoba chuckled. "Big bull with wings. Where do they get these things?"

"There's no blue pattern, Captain." Hyuuga glanced over his console, checking that there was indeed no Angelic presence, and stretched, popping one of his shoulders. "Some interesting readings, though. Should I record them for Doctor Akagi?"

"Bull... bull... yeah, go ahead, Hyuuga-kun. She might want to see them later." Misato scratched her head. Where had she heard of a bull with wings? It was right at the tip of her tongue...

In the midst of a particularly hard-fought battle, breathing is often described as a metaphor, with the object of similarity a bellows. Certainly, heavy exertion can cause the human body to inhale and exhale with that kind of force and sound, if not precisely the volume.

Tarou was breathing like the third shift at an overworked steel mill.

They'd traveled three or four miles already. This wasn't surprising; flying minotaurs cover a lot of ground, as do giants, especially when they are busy trying to beat the snot out of each other. Small buildings had been trampled, cars thrown like so many rocks.

The perv wasn't losing fast enough. Ten minutes, and he hadn't folded, still dodged around throwing aura every time he made an attack. It flickered like a not-quite-functioning projector, at times, and it wouldn't last too much longer.

Neither would he, for that matter. It was hard to hit a huge furry engine of destruction and make it hurt, and Happosai had been doing so for several minutes now. In return, Tarou had tagged him once or twice, in a glancing sort of way. Maybe.

Tarou wasn't fighting against Happosai. He could win; he'd beaten the perv before and could do so again... so long as he remained calm. Happosai wasn't just good, he was the best that Tarou had ever fought against, and the loss of concentration that came with anger was enough to shift the fight decisively in Happosai's favor. A mass of what would become bruises along Tarou's right side attested to that.

Again, Tarou dive-bombed the perv, dropping his multiple-ton body straight at the flickering giant. It was an obvious attack, of course, and thus not his real attack. The flying debris could do damage, as could a strike of his tentacles (now tightly coiled against his back) as Happosai moved to evade. Just a little bit is all he needed. Just one shot... and why was the idiot smiling like that?

At the last second, Happosai... shifted, literally moving faster than Tarou could comprehend, and vaulted over Tarou's forehead, using the horns as levers. Tarou bellowed, missed with every one of his eight tentacles, and spread his wings to brake himself...

He didn't realize his mistake until after he plowed through the roof and dipped himself in the pool of water. Hot water. The bastard had tricked him into jumping into a public bath house.

Tarou stood, water running off of his human form in a way that made one or two of the bath's occupants catch their breath (specifically, those one or two that led what can euphemistically be called an "alternate lifestyle"), and looked out the shattered remnants of the ceiling. No time to bang his head against his wall and bemoan his own stupidity. He could do that later. If he managed to get away from the perv.

"Heh. Looks like little Pantyhose is all wet after all!" One giant hand eclipsed his view of the sky.

He'd regret doing this later. Tarou didn't just want to beat Happosai, he wanted his name changed, and soon, and this kind of action wasn't going to speed things up any. It was a pretty low blow, in retrospect. It was something that Happy would have applauded, if he hadn't been on the receiving end of it.

Tarou shrugged, and sighed, and whipped the pair of pantyhose from around his waist. "Come and get it, then!" he shouted, as he flung the undergarment into the sky.

"HOTCHA!"

Tarou jumped, immediately launching himself into a spinning flip, and grimaced. He wasn't going to get two chances at this, of course. If he missed, then... well, he didn't have much to lose, and Happosai would probably just go home with his prize. That would be even harder than the physical injuries, and not just because of the blow to his pride. After all, it was hard to claim that you weren't some kind of pervert when you were a young man purchasing extra-stretch pantyhose for his own use.

An instant, a smile, and Tarou's foot connected with the tiny martial artist's face. The force of the blow, with as much spinning momentum as Tarou could generate without the use of cold water, jarred Tarou's spine and stopped him in midair, leaving him to fall back into the pool of hot water.

Happosai wasn't so lucky. The contact comically distended his facial features, splattered what was left of his nose over what was left of his face, and sent him flying like a cannonball into a nearby apartment building.

It was dirty, but boy, did it work.

Tarou got out of the bath, 'borrowed' a towel and pair of pants from the dressing room, and set out towards what passed for home. He was smiling, and not just from the satisfaction of his victory. Some people thought that he was a pervert himself, for wearing a sash of pantyhose. He told people that it was a kind of badge of honor. He preferred thinking of it, in the privacy of his own mind, as an ironically appropriate ace in the hole.

Rei padded between the bookshelves of the local library. Every so often, she would frown slightly and place another book in her school bag, and move on to another shelf.

She agreed that Ryoga had had a good idea. Reading about concepts of ordinary living in manga was certainly easier than having him try to explain, when it was clear that he didn't have any idea how to put the most important concepts into words. Still, though, it wasn't working as well as Rei would have preferred. They were written with the assumption that the reader would already be familiar with life, from experience, and not everything was presented in a way that could be easily understood.

It hadn't taken too much of a mental leap to realize, however, that nothing precluded the existence of a book that did indeed explain basic living in easy to understand terms. So, Rei had come to the library in search of what she thought as an instruction manual to life.

No such luck, of course. Not even the online card catalog listed that one.

Still, though, she'd found several books about this and that aspect of life that, when put together, might form an acceptable whole. Then again, considering that most of the people around her had what she considered a 'life' and still didn't know what they were doing much better than she did... well, all she really needed was a start. If people like Asuka and Ryoga could pick things up from experience, so could she.

Not having read "A Simple Guide to the Interpretation of Facial Expressions and Body Language" yet, Rei didn't realize until much later the significance of the librarian's rapidly twitching eyebrow, as she checked the various books through the library computer. It certainly looked like it would take a lot of practice to master, however.

Ritsuko walked into the small room, tucked away in the bowels of NERV headquarters, and gasped. Kaji leaned over the examining table, resting his arms on it in a way that told Ritsuko that he would have fallen over if not for the support. Something had happened, and as her first guess (encounter with an oversized, hostile, flying cuisinart, judging from the condition of his clothing) was unlikely, she assumed that the thing strapped to the table was responsible for his injuries.

For a moment, incredulity wiped out any compassion she might have felt. "You must be joking. THIS is..."

"Yeah, it's it. I suggest you get working. I don't know how long the straps are going to hold it..."

On the table, secured with restraints that were guaranteed to hold any being short of an Evangelion, thrashed a set of clothing. A Chinese warrior's costume, to be specific. White blouse, boiled leather breastplate, black tights, ornaments here and there. Unoccupied. The clothes were moving by themselves.

Ritsuko placed both of the small cases that she had been carrying on a nearby tray. The first was packed chock full of electronic equipment, sensors, microsubprocessors, medical feeds, and every other accouterment needed to transform this... thing into a workable plug suit.

The other contained an ordinary sewing kit, and Ritsuko noticed Kaji's offhand smile at it as he sank gratefully into a waiting chair. "I didn't know you liked embroidery."

"This thing wouldn't fit her without some alterations; I'm going to have to let it out here and gather it in there, so to speak." Ritsuko sniffed. "It's not like you to miss something like that."

"Even I have my limits, Rit-chan."

Ritsuko regarded the struggling wardrobe. "Look, if you don't calm down, I'm not going to get these stitches straight, and you'll look like hell. Understand?"

The suit stopped moving.

"Why didn't I think of that?" Kaji said, through a jaw dropped so low that it must have been dislocated in the fight.

"I have never felt quite so silly in my life." Ritsuko rolled her eyes. "I'm talking to a costume, and it understands me."

"Hey, it worked."

She selected a spool of fine white thread, a needle, and a massed tangle of wiring. "Not yet, it hasn't."

Happosai pulled himself out of the wreckage and looked around. The sun had shifted, now hanging off of the western horizon. It wasn't hard to see; the entire apartment had been gutted by fire, and his entrance had opened a large hole in the exterior wall. Nobody seemed to be home, of course.

That little sneak!

He rubbed a sore spot on his cheek and thought. Tarou didn't have any call to do what he did, did he? No, of course not. One moment you're out playing around, having some fun, maybe reminding a youngster or two why you're the ancient master and he's not, and then somebody takes your one weak point and drives a heel into it. Not sporting, really not fair at all!

Of course, it'd be a funny thing if everybody fought fair. The move was dirty, sure, but very well executed. Happosai had practiced it himself on a younger Genma, using a box of Ho-Hos as bait. Happosai fancied that he was feeling something akin to grudging respect for the boy. If he kept up like this, he'd have to stop calling the kid Pantyhose. Besides, just calling him Panty would be even funnier.

A board, dangling from the smashed and blackened wall, chose this particular moment to dislodge itself and crash to the floor. Happosai shrugged, and moved to dust off his hands before he realized that they weren't empty. In the left one was... the pair of pantyhose! Oh, now, that was a pleasant surprise. While ordinarily he preferred to harvest them himself (most preferably while they were actually in use, but alas, that was the most rare of opportunities) as opposed to being kicked in the face for them... ah, what the hell. Lingerie is lingerie. He balled it into a wad and shoved it into a pocket.

The other hand was wrapped around a scroll. "Hrm..." he mused, trying to remember where he had picked up some new reading material. It obviously hadn't come from here; the parchment would never have survived the fire. Again, he shrugged and folded it away.

Ranma dropped to the locker room's sole bench, toweling off his hair. That LCL stuff got everywhere and was a bear to wash out. He was sure that he hadn't quite scraped the last bit of the guck out of his ears.

"What happened, Ranma?" Ryoga folded his plug suit and crammed it into a locker, not bothering to close the door. His voice was light, and more than a bit mocking, but he was still holding something back. Ranma shivered, despite the thick clouds of steam still coming from the shower. There wasn't anything to worry about.

"I heard you fell down the first time you tried it, too."

"Once, yeah, not three times. And you don't have any cord to trip over!"

"Yeah, yeah, rub it in, why don't you." Ranma pulled a freshly-  
laundered Chinese shirt over his head. "I think the machine's buggy. It didn't move, well, right, y'know? It's kind of gangly."

Ryoga nodded. "There's that."

An idea sprang into form. "Hey, next time, why don't we switch? I bet I could get yours to work fine."

"No way!" Ryoga dropped halfway into a combat stance before he caught himself. Wearing a sheepish grin, the lost boy mumbled, "Sorry about that... didn't mean to shout at you."

"Whatever." Ranma decided that trying to get Ryoga to swap Eva with him wasn't a particularly good idea. He wasn't that defensive over anything short of Akane. As if that wasn't one more thing to worry about. Maybe he could cover it up if he cracked a joke... let's see... "Probably better if we don't. If you didn't have that cord, you'd get loose and they'd never find you!" Heh.

The joke was lame, but Ryoga laughed at it as if it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. Definitely a sign that something was wrong, then; even after all this time, he was still a little bit sensitive about his handicap.

"Maybe, maybe. It'll get worked out. Ritsuko's smart, she knows what she's doing."

Ranma wadded his plug suit into a ball and tossed it into a hamper. No problem with wrinkles, he reasoned. If anything was made of fantastic space-age fabric, that had to be it. "Here, I've got to head home. Gotta talk with Akane... something's bugging her."

All the laughter died out of Ryoga's voice as he asked, "Is she okay?"

"For the fifth time today, yes already. Maybe everything's just getting to her," Ranma said, knowing as he said it that it wasn't true. There had to be something specific on her mind to make her act... hell, he didn't know, less uncute. He didn't want less uncute anymore. "I'll take care of it."

"If there's anything I can do..."

"It's all right, man. Jeez! We've got to get you somebody else to worry about..."

"Somebody else. Yeah," Ryoga said, showing a complete lack of enthusiasm. Recovering somewhat, he grinned. "Get out of here, you've tripped enough for one day."

"Hai, hai..." Ranma called out, dripping sarcasm, as he headed for the door. "Mom says that she's got something that might help out. Think it'll work?"

Gendo stared at the bag on his desk.

It wasn't unusual in the least for him to see Rei between her classes and her synch tests. Neither was it unusual for her to spend time in his office during those times. It wasn't even unusual for her to spend the entire time with him without speaking a single word, or for him to do likewise. Sometimes, everything that needs to be said has been said already.

She'd never had a load like this, though. That bag was stuffed full of books. They weren't schoolbooks, as he'd been quite explicit with the instructor that the pilots were not to be overburdened with unnecessary work, and the instructor had replied that he could easily just lecture about the Second Impact until his student's brains turned to mush. That was all right with Gendo; none of the pilots were the type inclined to high poetry or great leaps of thinking in the first place, and the boredom served as a rest break for the children. Also, it made the more unpleasant aspects of employment by NERV look better by comparison.

That meant that Rei was doing outside reading, and that meant that something had gone horribly wrong. Rei never did outside reading. Heck, she wouldn't look at the street signs unless she needed them to navigate. She'd started with precious little curiosity and Gendo had done nothing to encourage it.

Well, having something go horribly wrong seemed to be par for the course this week. Kumon had come up blank again, Ritsuko was in a snit about being pulled several ways at once with these special projects that kept popping up, Katsuragi's offspring couldn't pilot his way out of a paper bag from the way he'd performed in the test exercise this afternoon, and the other pilot candidate demolished several otherwise perfectly useable buildings in some kind of social dispute. There were days that tempted him to pack it all in and let Seele do what it wished. Humanity really did deserve what it had coming.

All of those were problems that he couldn't do much about, or had done what he could, or was in the process of addressing. Rei's bag was sitting on the table. He could take a quick look at the contents and put them away before she got back. If he was careful, she'd never know he had seen it, not that she would take exception.

Did his ordinary, meddling curiosity warrant intruding upon her right to privacy?

Gendo snorted, coming very close to cracking a smile. Sure, give him a tough one, why don't they? He reached for the bag.

Ryoga stretched and yawned. A night's sleep had done wonders for his attitude. The birds sang, the breeze was light and smelled of flowers, and perhaps the world wasn't such a dark and lonely place after all.

Then, of course, the events of the last two years hit him, and everything darkened. Just a bit. It was a burden he was used to carrying, after all. And things weren't as bad as they'd been. Right.

It was too bad that the morning hadn't had the same effect on the rest of his... "friends" wouldn't quite be the right word, but damned if he knew any better. Tarou was stiff, sullen, and not talking to anybody. Rei had buried her nose in a book as soon as she returned home from a late test and hadn't budged since. Misato had been gone, ostensibly to tend Kaji's injuries (and how the heck had something beat the crap out of him like that while he was working in a storeroom?), but Ryoga suspected that she was more likely to lick his wounds than her own. Unfortunately for him, he'd voiced that opinion, turning what had started off as one of Asuka's worse days into something that he wouldn't forget for years.

Forget it. Ryoga had an itch in his feet, one that he got whenever he settled down for too long. It wasn't exactly a recurring condition, but what hey. He needed to get out and smell the fresh air.

Tarou had other ideas. "Forget it. I'm not going. Ask Rei."

"Rei's busy."

"I'm busy."

Ryoga raised one eyebrow. "You haven't moved from that couch for an hour."

"Get off my case, pig-boy." Tarou rose from the couch and loped down the hall, yawning behind one hand. "Think I'll see how Asuka's..." He was cut off by a muffled thump as a pillow flew through the cracked door to Asuka's room and impacted on Tarou's face. Following the pillow was a shout that was completely meaningless in any language that Tarou had ever heard but still was instantly recognizable as something akin to "shut the door, idiot!", which Tarou did.

The Chinese boy turned. "Here, I need to be alone with my thoughts. Let's go."

"If I'm with you..."

"Precisely." Tarou jerked a thumb at the door. "It's too stuffy in here."

"Yeah."

An unhappy Ranma emerged from the locker room. Misato thought that he... she'd be a bit more enthusiastic, although it made sense if she wasn't. Nothing for damping one's ardor like dumping a bucket of freezing cold water over somebody's head.

"What is this thing?" Ranma plucked at the limp fabric of the odd suit. "Feels... funny."

"Of course it feels funny. Ritsuko says that it's a new model plug suit."

"New model?" Ranma snorted. "Looks like it's a few hundred years old. And couldn't they have made it a -guy's- suit? This is humiliating."

Misato had been wondering about that herself. In fact, now that she recalled, Ritsuko had used the particular tone in their conversations about the subject that said, "I'm not telling you everything there is to know or indeed everything you're going to need to know, and it will probably come back to bite us both in the ass," a tone that hadn't been used much since college days.

"And what's with Ryoga's pop? He having a seizure or something?"

"Forget it."

"But his eyebrow keeps going up and down... it's like a hummingbird! I'm sure it could be used in a martial arts technique..."

"I said forget it. We probably don't want to know."

Gendo wasn't angry. He wasn't furious. Both of those emotions he could channel away, store up for some future time when they'd be useful, or take out on unsuspecting subordinates in dozens of different and enjoyable ways. Instead, he felt bewildered.

The whole situation had gotten out of hand! He should have watched her better, told her a few more things perhaps. Some affection, maybe. He just hoped to high heaven (for what it was worth) that she had his son in mind, disgusting imagery set aside. After all, the only two other plausible alternatives were even worse, with one exponentially more likely and the other exponentially more dangerous. For her, for the project, for Gendo's sanity.

He sat in his chair, numbly letting 03's synchronization recalibration flow over and past his conscious mind. At least things had taken care of themselves in that respect. Kaji and Ritsuko had both come through and with any luck (or at least the kind of luck that he hadn't been having lately), there would soon be four useable pilots instead of merely three. As if he cared about that at this stage.

Indulging himself, that's what he was doing, Gendo thought. Although he felt he had a right to wallow for a bit. It wasn't every day that one found a copy of "Where's Waldo" in his fourteen-year-old daughter's books, you know. Not to mention the rest of them, but that was the worst of the lot.

Somewhere, in the background, they finished the final checks for the activation of 03. Gendo nearly smiled. With the way that his week was going, this would have to go off flawlessly for things to almost balance out. Which they wouldn't, naturally. Bad things were not only bound to happen, they were mandated...

End of part 19

Questions, comments, and whatnot go to akent 


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